Cracks In The Ice
by RoseWillow13
Summary: Being alone is never easy. For Jack Frost, it was that much worse. Trigger warning: depression, self harm, suicide, and possibly eating disorder. A special note from Jack in the end. (The official RP blog for the Jack aspect displayed in this story is forgotten-fr0st . tumblr . com, for anyone who is interested.)
1. The Birth of Jack

Being alone is never easy.

No matter how used to being alone you are, it doesn't ease the pain. It's like a constant grinding on your soul, and you wait for yourself to go numb but the nerves just never die.

For Jack Frost, it was no different. If anything, it was worse.

250 years before, he had awoken in the lake.

Everyone he'd seen that day had not seen him. Everyone he'd tried to greet walked right through him. No one heard his voice. No one had even _suspected_ he was there.

* * *

Jack's first year as the spirit of winter was spent in wild desperation. After the unpleasant realization in the town by his lake, he flew around the globe, talking to everyone he saw, hoping that someone would see him.

No one did.

The next was spent in depression. The worst feeling is knowing that even though there are people all around you, you are completely alone. No one knows that you're suffering, and no one even cares.

Jack moved around constantly, riding the winds to different places around the globe, unable to stand being in one place for too long. Jack never laughed. He never even smiled. He ached so much it was all he could do to keep moving about. He brought cold and snow like he was meant to, but there was no soul behind it.

Jack was empty.

But eventually Jack decided that being depressed as he was did no good to himself. It was boring and a waste of time. He wanted to be happy. He wanted to cause mischief. And so he did. He shoved his depression into the back of his mind and began his new life, as a being of fun. So, for two hundred fifty years, he rode the winds, created snowstorms, painted windows with his beautiful frost, built snowmen in the night, and tossed a few snowballs to the unsuspecting kids who would turn and see...nothing.

But you can only fake being happy for so long. That depression in Jack swelled behind the wall he'd put up, just waiting to come back out.


	2. Easter Sunday, 1968

_**You can only fake being happy for so long. That depression in Jack swelled behind the wall, just waiting to come back out.**_

And it did, in 1968.

Before, Jack wouldn't have denied that he kind of like E. Aster Bunnymund. The Pooka was just undeniably cool; what teenage boy _doesn't_ like a buff, gruff action-hero-type, even if he _is_ labeled as something as cutesy as the "Easter Bunny"?

Yes, Jack liked Bunnymund quite a bit. And he got an idea on how to get his attention.

Jack, being bred in mischief with no one to right him and having used snow to get attention for nearly 250 years, only thought of one way to get Bunnymund to acknowledge him. A snowfall on Easter.

Imagine how fun it would be for the children too, gathering up snow to make a snowball and finding an Easter Egg buried beneath!

He sought out a town that could afford a surprise snowfall at such a point in spring, and brought forth the storm.

But poor Jack got nervous, and his power started to get out of control. When he realized what was happening, he got upset and tried to call it down a notch, but ended up only making it that much bigger.

It didn't happen as he'd planned, and Bunnymund was _not_ happy.

Jack stood on the edge of the worst of the snow, staring out at what he had done, when the Pooka found him. "Well, if it isn't Jack Frost."

Jack turned, his general horror at his own work giving way to surprise. "You know my name?"

"A'course I do. Everyone does. Yer a nuisance to most'a us, at best." Bunnymund hopped forward, and judging by the look on his face, Jack knew he was in trouble. Bunny grabbed his shirt and pushed him up against a nearby tree. His feet dangled above the ground. "Lookit what you've done, 'ere! You've screwed up Easter and devastated an entire state! I knew you were annoyin' and irresponsible, but this is downright reckless!"

Jack knew Bunny was angry, and he knew he deserved to be at the end of his anger, but that didn't make the words hurt any less. He opened his mouth to apologize and explain himself, but what came out of the Pooka's mouth next froze the words in his throat.

"Why don't you stop being such a burden? Do everyone a favor and get lost, you bloody bit'a Frostbite. Yer worse than useless!" Bunny dropped Jack, who landed flat on his feet and glared up at the rabbit.

Jack wanted to deflate, apologize, and run away. He didn't want to make things any worse between him and the rabbit. But something Bunnymund said hit a nerve, and chipped a little bit at the wall that Jack had put up 250 years before.

_Everyone_ knew him. All the spirits - Easter Bunny, Santa, the Tooth Fairy, the Sandman, and all the rest - they knew who he was. They'd just refused to talk to him. Refused to acknowledge him. None of them even cared to say_ hi_.

Combining that information with being yelled at over a mistake created a very bitter and angry Frost spirit.

He exploded.

"Hey! No one got hurt! I just wanted to have a little fun. And you think _I'm_ useless? What do you do for anyone? Leave eggs that rot and stink up the whole town if they're not found? Yeah, I can definitely see the use in that!" And with that, he called the winds to take him up and away before Bunnymund could get in another word.

* * *

'_Yer worse than useless!_'

The words from the Guardian who Jack had looked up to in secret burned in his mind, and it wasn't long before his rage fizzled out into the feeling he had held back for over two centuries. He allowed the winds to let him go and he landed near a hardware store. It had opened up for aid in cleaning up his mess. He didn't know why he was here, but it was better than being out there where the angry overgrown rabbit could find him. Feeling lost, he wandered inside.


	3. Bleeding

_Many years later..._

It was only yesterday that Jack Frost had been initiated as the Guardian of Fun. He had new friends, he had a few believers, and he was suddenly regarded as a hero. It had definitely been the happiest day of his life.

But all the adrenaline from yesterday, the high from saving Jamie and his friends and the Guardians, from beating the boogeyman, was wearing off. Suddenly, Jack felt overwhelmed. Upon him had been thrust a responsibility to protect children. Considering all that he had done during the fight with Pitch, it should be easy...but his focus on Jamie was the only thing that kept his powers in check. He wasn't sure if he could control them well enough now. After all, children got hurt and people _died_ in snowstorms that got too out of his control.

Thinking on this, the blizzard of '68 popped into his head. Sure, that was one of the blizzards that had hurt no one, but the things Bunny had said to him rang so true, even now. Images of all the people who had died because of a lapse of control; children caught in the cold, car crashes because of the ice, whole towns nearly starving to death in long winters...everyone who had died, he'd memorized the face of. Their images haunted is mind nearly every day.

He fished a razor out of his jacket pocket.

The razor, he'd swiped from the hardware store he'd found himself at after his first meeting with Bunny. He'd been using it to keep himself from breaking down ever since. Every time his powers got out of hand and someone got hurt because of what he'd done, every time his loneliness gripped him, every time he felt suffocated by everything, he took the razor out.

Shaking, he sat himself on the tree branch he was perched on, and put the blade to his wrist.

Fresh cuts mingled with the healing lavender cuts and the old white scars. Red liquid bubbled in the depths of the cuts and began to pour out, which shocked him - Jack's blood had been frozen since he'd risen from the lake, so he'd never bled before. He watched, fascinated, with tears in his eyes.

And he made another cut.

The warmth dripping down his arms was a new feeling, and an insane release for his stress. So he kept cutting, and watching the blood flow.

It wasn't more than a few minutes before Jack finally passed out, and fell from his perch, landing in a cushion of snow below.


	4. Finding Jack

Jack lay, unconscious and bleeding, in the thick pile of snow below him.

It was only late morning, so Manny did not find Jack for many hours. And he almost missed him. With Jack in the physical state he was in, the snow was not under his control and was falling non-stop. It almost completely covered the boy. But the moon's rays still found the telltale blue hood peeking out from the snow, and the red stains in the white substance.

* * *

At Santoff Clausen, North was back to fixing up his toys and preparing for Christmas. Sure, it was nine months away, but with so many kids still recovering their belief from Pitch's attack, he had to make sure it was the best Christmas ever.

He was carving out his most beautiful train to date when three very frantic elves came running in, chattering incomprehensibly.

"Vat? Vat iz eet?" North barely looked up from the train, gently shaping the engine car out, too focused to care about whatever nonsense the elves were going on about this time. But when the elves started tugging annoyingly at his pants leg, and a creeping feeling of dread finally made its way into his belly, he gave in and set his masterpiece down. "Okay, okay. Vat do you want?"

One elf stepped back and began hopping up and down, pointing in the direction of the globe room as the other two urged him to come see what was happening. He desperately hoped that his gut was wrong this time. After all, it was usually the yetis who alerted him to trouble. Hoping that everything was okay and the elves were just being silly, he allowed them to pull him along.

But when he saw the images the Man in the Moon was displaying, he was frightened to his very core.

He pulled the switch that would send the Auroras out to find the rest of the Guardians.

* * *

Bunny was the first to show up. He hadn't been in his Warren; he had been sneaking around in children's houses, placing eggs in their rooms to try to regain their faith by convincing them that he just got the date of Easter wrong or _something_, when he saw the lights. Remembering what followed the last time he'd seen them, he rushed through his tunnels to North's place in record time.

Sandy was next. He wasn't nearly as busy as he could have been under normal circumstances. With Pitch off being hunted by his own nightmares, he was not having to struggle over who would win the childrens' dreams. His job had never been easier, so when he saw the lights, he didn't have to think twice about rushing to the Pole.

Tooth was last. She would have probably been there first, but her tooth fairies were still recovering from their time in Pitch's lair and she had been out in the field with them, carrying a large sack full of teeth and another full of coins to trade. She had to rush back to her home to store the teeth away before following the lights back.

But when they got there, they all found the same sight; North was pacing back and forth with a more worried look on his face than they had ever seen, the elves were bouncing around in what they could only decide was a panic the way they were crying, and the yetis were huddled together and glancing at the door, looking restless and scared.

"North, what's going on?" Tooth asked, fluttering about next to him. The atmosphere in the room was making them all even more nervous.

North only shook his head and pointed to the floor tile where Manny's rays were flashing images frantically. None of the guardians had ever seen him do that before. But when they deciphered the images, they realized why he was so worried.

It showed a silhouette of Jack falling to the ground, what appeared to be blood spreading out across the ground around him, and snowflakes falling down onto his body creating a pile and hiding him from sight.

The Guardians didn't even need to talk it over. The four of them darted to their respective means of transportation, determined to find the newest member of their group.

* * *

Jack slowly opened his eyes. He felt heavy...squished. In a sleepy haze, he looked around. Everything was white around him...no...wait...he was covered in snow. He started to sit up, but his head suddenly began to hurt and he let out a small groan before falling back again.

He barely heard the voice calling his name before everything went black.

* * *

It seemed like an eternity, not a few hours, before Bunny found Jack. He was not a big fan of snow, but MiM had made it very clear that Jack was lost somewhere in the stuff. It made it a little more difficult to catch his scent, since Jack smelled dominantly of snow, but the subtle hints of mint and vanilla wafted up his nose and he stopped, slowing his pace and sniffing around.

His sensitive ears picked up the muffled groan coming from a few feet ahead, and he saw the snow disrupt a bit.

"Frostbite?" Bunny hopped forward and his stomach clenched. He smelled the blood before he saw it, and he already knew it was coming, but it didn't stop him from crying out when he saw the red-stained snow. "Jack!"

Frantically, he shoved his paws into the snow, digging out the winter spirit. It took a few minutes, since the snow coming down from above refused to let up any, but he finally dug the boy out enough to lift him up. His ears pinned back and his heart nearly broke - Jack was unconscious, dried blood was caked on his wrists, and there was a rusty old razor blade in his hand.

"No... Jack...Jack, wake up!" He gently shook the boy, but taking note of his shallow breathing, decided it was better to get him help right then instead of trying to wake him first. He took Jack into his arms and tapped the ground twice, opening up one of his tunnels, and made his way carefully back to the North Pole.


	5. Healing, Or?

"North, let me in to see Jack!"

Tooth was frantic. Bunny had arrived back at the Pole while the others were still out looking. One of the yetis had set off the Auroras again to signal the rest of the Guardians back, and Bunny had taken Jack into an empty room and turned it into a sort-of infirmary.

When North had seen Jack, he decided that letting Tooth or her fairies in to see their crush was a bad idea.

Bunny, North, Sandy, several yetis, and a handful of the less idiotic and more obedient elves were huddled in the makeshift infirmary with Jack's unconscious form.

"Sandy..." North started, when Tooth's pleas became more desperate, and the little golden man nodded. He slipped out the door, and North heard a pair of wings slowing to a stop as a feathery body hit the floor.

Finally able to concentrate without worrying about Tooth coming in to see the bloody mess that was the Guardian of Fun, he turned back to the bed.

Bunny had already stripped him of his hoodie by the time the others had arrived. The sleeves were stained dark red.

The shirt underneath was no better. The blood didn't stand out so well on the dark blue of his jacket, but the shirt was white and the group got to see just how much blood Jack had lost when he'd cut himself. Bunny had been working to pull that off of him when the others came in.

Jack's body was a pitiful sight. North needed to clean up his wounds in order to see the real damage done, but underneath all that blood were more cuts and scars.

"Ah...how long 'as he been doin' this to 'imself?" Bunny mumbled. He'd held one of Jack's hands in his paw and turned his arm over carefully to examine it.

* * *

The workshop was silent. Sandy had resigned himself to keeping Tooth and her fairies occupied, having no medical experience himself, while North and Bunny worked on Jack.

"He needs stitches, mate..." Bunny's ears pinned back again at his own words. He knew it was true, but having paws, he couldn't sew Jack's wrists up himself.

"Right...right..." North dampened a rag with cold water and held it out to Bunny. "'Ere. Use dis on dat hand vile I verk." While Bunny held the rag firmly against Jack's wrist, North busied himself with the other, disinfecting it before taking the surgical needle and thread one of the elves held up on a tray.

Jack was barely responsive throughout the whole process. Every now and then, he would let out a weak whimper, and Bunny would wince and nudge Jack's cheek with his nose, trying in vain to comfort the boy.

Finally, North traded places with Bunny, working to stitch the cuts on the other wrist, while the Pooka gently cleaned up around the fresh stitches and wrap them up in sterile bandages. When he finished, he resumed nudging at Jack with his nose while smoothing his hair with his paws.

After the most agonizing hour the Guardians had ever lived through, the work on Jack was finished.

"All ve can do now is vait for him to vake up." North clapped Bunny on the shoulder. "I think he vill be fine."

* * *

Jack was not fine.

The shock of the blood loss had driven the winter spirit into a raging fever as his body struggled to do something it had not attempted to do in 300 years; reproduce blood cells. Bunny had opened all of the windows in the room, allowing the cold air in, and North had ordered the yetis to keep cold, damp rags at the ready to aid in trying to keep Jack cool.

For days, Jack lay on the bed, panting shortly and sweating, while everyone worked to nurse him back to health.

Tooth and Sandy had visited whenever they could spare their time. North kept his time well divided - he still had to work on Christmas preparations with the yetis, but with nine months to do so, he could afford more time taking care of Jack than the two Guardians who had to work around the clock.

But Bunny had all the time in the world. Easter had just ended a week ago, so he had months before he even had to think about preparations. Besides, his googies could basically paint themselves if it came down to it. That being said, the Pooka never left Jack's side. The two had only just parted on good terms and become what he'd hoped to be somewhat friends. He couldn't lose Jack now.

* * *

A week had passed, and Jack's fever had only gone down a few degrees.

Bunny sat in a chair, his head resting on the bed near Jack's hip as he slept.

The sound of the yetis occasionally coming in and replacing the rag on Jack's forehead had become all too familiar to the Pooka and did not disturb his sleep at all, so when his ears perked up and startled him awake, he desperately hoped that what he'd heard was not his imagination.

A minute passed, and his ears pinned back again as he figured he'd dreamed it.

But the sound came again.

This time, he knew he heard it right.

A weak grunt, followed by a soft moan. Bunny's paw smoothed Jack's hair down and he nudged his chin with his nose. "C'mon, Jack...wake up..."

* * *

"Jack...Jack, please..."

Whoever's voice it was calling for him was so far away. He shifted a little, the vision of blackness in his eyes turning to white with pain.

The voice sounded a bit closer, now. "C'mon, mate...wake up..." Bunny?

Jack's eyes opened slowly, and as the light flooded into them, he became aware of exactly how much he hurt. His arms throbbed with a dull heated sensation and his head ached horribly. By reflex, he closed his eyes tightly and groaned. He felt sick to his stomach. His heart was racing...

Wait...

Despite the pain, Jack struggled to sit up, to open his eyes, to see where he was. But a warm nose nudged at his neck gently and a big furry paw kept him from sitting up. "Easy there, Frostbite. You'd best be stayin' in bed fer a while."

Jack figured it wouldn't do much good for him to argue with Bunny, so he let his head fall back onto the pillow, panting a little at the effort he'd made at the attempt. When his breath finally returned, he glanced up at the furry face of his fellow Guardian. "Where...where am I?"

"You're at the Pole, mate," Bunny said softly. It seemed weird that he was being so...careful...right now. Bunny's gaze fell to the floor. "You've had a pretty bad fever for a while, now...about a week, actually."

He'd been out for a week? He struggled to recall what was happening before he passed out. One minute, he was perched in a tree...and the next...

Oh.

Jack pulled his arms in close to his sides, turning his wrists so they'd be hidden against his hips. It was then that he realized that he wasn't wearing his hoodie, or his shirt. Bunny's odd behavior made a bit of sense now. Jack finally turned his head away from Bunny, facing the wall instead.

"Jack... I..." Bunny paused, as if he couldn't think of what to say. Jack hated that.

"Don't." He didn't want the sympathy. He didn't want questions. Mostly he just wanted to fly out the window and never have to face the Pooka again. Oh, MiM, if he was at Santoff Clausen, did that mean the others knew about him as well? He couldn't bear to face any of them.

He'd never wanted them to find out about this.


	6. Homeless

No one had been worrying much about cleaning Jack's clothes during the frightening week of his fever. But now that Jack had come out of his coma and seemed to be regaining his health, the untouched bloody pile of clothes in the corner of the room was bothering North to no end.

The yetis refused to touch the soiled clothes. As annoying as Jack had been to them the hundreds of times he'd attempted to break in, they'd come to somewhat adore the spirit. North understood that; something about the boy held an irresistible charm. When he laughed, it was almost like you had no choice in the matter of laughing right along with him. Fiddling with clothes that held evidence of how much the boy had been hurt would be far too much on their hearts.

He'd been hoping Phil would wash the clothes when the rest of the yetis said no. But his head of security had frowned and chattered in yeti language something along the lines of "laundry isn't my forte".

North saw through him for what the problem really was...poor Phil was the closest of them all to Jack. None of the Guardians had yet gotten the chance to get to know the sprite - he'd been unconscious since his initiation and none of them had really spoken to him before he was Chosen - and Phil was always the one catching him and throwing him back out of the fortress when he tried to break in. North was positive there was more to their relationship than that; after all, Jack could understand yetish, and that wasn't something you just knew without a patient, constant teacher. But he hadn't had the chance to confront him about it yet.

He hoped he'd get that chance.

He couldn't ask the other Guardians to take care of Jack's clothes. This was _his_ home Jack was resting in, and it was _his_ responsibility to take care of him while he stayed. Although, Bunny had been doing a good job of that for him. He figured the Pooka must be freezing his tail off by Jack's bed, considering they had the window open to freeze out his fever, but the poor rabbit refused to leave.

Even the elves didn't want to disturb the pile of filthy clothes on the floor, and they got into anything and everything they could, no matter how filthy. Despite Jack freezing one of them in front of all the others, _for fun_, he'd grown on them too.

North knew that he was going to be the only one to make the effort to clean them.

As he picked up the hoodie, he couldn't help but notice how truly filthy it was. He carefully avoided touching the spots stained and stiffened by blood as he examined the fabric. It looked as though it hadn't been washed in a decade...or three. The entire garment seemed to be a muted shade of the brilliant midnight blue it could have been, it was so covered in dirt.

North shook his head and dug through the pockets to make sure nothing of importance that shouldn't be washed was in there. And a good thing he did, too - out came the box that had held Jack's baby teeth. Tooth probably would have ripped his head off if he'd let _that_ go into the load. But something else came out, too. It looked to be a piece of heavily folded...raw hide, he decided. Old material. He unfolded it, and marveled at what it was.

It was a cloak, heavily reminiscent of the 1700's. Jack's time, he realized. It struck him that this was probably what he was wearing when Manny turned him into who he was. He pushed the two articles of clothing into a sack, figuring Jack would appreciate it being cleaned.

The white shirt Jack had been wearing beneath his jacket was so much more worse off. It wasn't even really white at this point as much as it was a patchy brown.

Something clicked into place in North's mind. With the exception of that frosty blue hoodie, all of Jack's clothes were _old_. Probably as old as Jack himself.

Had he been wearing the same clothes for 300 years?

North didn't have the presence of mind at that moment to feel disgusted that he was handling clothes that hadn't received a proper washing in centuries. He instead looked over to Jack's sleeping form.

Creeping closer, he inspected Jack's pants. They were filthy, too. Filthy and worn and ancient...far too ancient for a teenager to wear every day and be comfortable in them.

For a while, North sat, looking between the sack of clothes and Jack's old pants. He was tempted to throw them out and make Jack all new clothes, but Jack had obtained his hoodie somehow and probably could have gotten more if he'd wanted to. Instead, he kept the clothes from his beginning. North couldn't throw them out without Jack's permission.

* * *

North had awoken Bunny, and the two of them carefully helped Jack into a pair of fresh underwear and jeans while he slept, and slipped a plain white sweater on him as well. They had been keeping Tooth from seeing Jack because of the bandages on his arms and didn't want her to worry too much, so now, with them hidden, at least they could let her in to see him.

* * *

The clothes had been cleaned. With special care to not damage the old clothes, North had managed to completely clear away the stubborn stains.

The blood was the most stubborn of it all, though. The dirt came away so much easier than he'd thought it would have.

North's magic could not do anything with the snap of a finger, but it could still do something as simple as cleaning the most impossible stains from clothing. It always took work, just like everything else he did, but it could be done.

The dirt in Jack's clothes came out, not as though it had been poorly washed and ground further into the knitting, but as though they had never been washed before.

Had they been? Jack was a free spirit, to an extent. His job - no, his whole purpose - was to bring snow and joy to children across the world. He traveled around whenever he felt like it, and he was out and about _a lot_. Considering he'd been able to call some of the Burgess kids by name during their battle with Pitch, the Guardians had figured his home was there. But where would his home be? It wasn't like there was an extravagant ice palace anywhere in or near the little town.

Gazing down at the pile of Jack's fresh, folded clothes, North realized with an uncomfortable chill that Jack probably didn't have a home to return to at all and therefore never had a place to do something as simple as wash his only clothes, and likely never had.


	7. Alive

Jack had been bedridden for two days now.

When he'd first woken up, it had been far beyond humiliating. And now, Bunny still hadn't gone back to acting normally, like he was afraid teasing him would send him over the edge.

Knowing that's probably _exactly_ what the Pooka was thinking made Jack more uncomfortable than ever.

The second time he'd woken up had been kind of jarring. Tooth had woken him up with her fluttering. Panicked, the first thing he did was turn his arms to hide his wrists when he heard the sound, but then he realized that he was wearing long sleeves again. When he glanced down to see if someone had given him back his shirt and hoodie, he was again mortified to see that he was wearing all different clothes.

Including different pants. Jack didn't exactly wear underwear, so...

Everything happening made the blood rush to Jack's face in embarrassment.

Of course, that little fact was what got to him the most.

Jack's whole body had been frozen in the lake. His blood, his heart, everything had been frozen. For some reason, his blood was pumping again, and that scared him. A lot.

When Tooth had finally,_ finally_ left him alone - mostly alone, since Bunny refused for some unknown reason to leave his side - he was able to sit back in the quiet of the room and think.

It hadn't been long before he'd become a Guardian that he'd cut himself again. In fact, it was in Antarctica, a few minutes before Pitch had shown up with Baby Tooth in his clutches, because of what had happened to Easter and Bunny. He hadn't bled, then, when he'd done it. It was no different than it had been for the past fifty years; no matter how deeply he'd dig into his flesh, the cut would frost over and remain that way as it scarred. No blood.

He held his breath and put a hand to his chest. He could feel it now. His heart was beating. He hadn't heard his own heartbeat since he'd fallen into the lake.

"Mate?"

Jack jumped a bit and looked at Bunny. He'd become so used to him being there that he'd forgotten he wasn't alone.

"You alright, there?"

He blinked at him, and looked down, not saying a word.

* * *

Bunny wilted when Jack didn't answer him. He'd been quiet ever since their first conversation when he'd come out of the coma; hadn't uttered a word. Not to North, who came in during Tooth's visit asking how he liked the feel of the new clothes. Not to greet Sandy, who'd come in the night before to put him back to sleep. Not to answer Tooth's rapid-fire questions.

Especially not to Bunny. In fact, he was sure Jack had started to regard him as a piece of furniture and not a concerned friend at the moment.

His thoughts were interrupted as Jack moved under the covers. "H-hey, what are you doin'?" Jack didn't answer, instead swinging his feet off the edge of the bed to touch the floor. "Whoa there, Frostbite...lemme help ya." Bunny reached out to steady Jack by the shoulder, but the spirit shrugged his paw off and made his way across the room to where his staff was perched against the wall. "Jack..."

* * *

Jack picked up his staff and relaxed a little bit, relieved that the frost still spread out across it at his touch and relieved to have it in his hands again. He silently called the wind to come in and pick him up, hoping that he was strong enough to ride it properly. Ignoring Bunny's protests when he found that he could, he glided quickly and easily out the window.

His feet barely escaped Bunny's grasping paws as he darted through the air, away from the North Pole.

* * *

Jack zigzagged across the continent, making sure to leave his scent everywhere before heading away. That would confuse Bunny enough to keep him and the rest of the Guardians away.

It was a half an hour before he was far away enough into the mountains that he let out an angry, frustrated, and desperately frightened scream. His voice sounded weak, after having not used it for the past three days.

The moon's rays found him, the light enveloping him like a gentle hug. Jack, before his heart had started again, probably would have welcomed the comfort from the Man in the Moon, but right then, it only made him angrier. Letting out another frustrated shout, he flew into the shadows and out of Manny's sight.

He curled up on the ground, hugging his knees. He felt weird in these new clothes, but at least it wasn't too uncomfortable. The jeans weren't nearly as tight has his old pants were. In fact, the clothes fit him perfectly as though they'd been made just for him. He pushed away the twinge of guilt - these were probably laying around the workshop, a gift that had never been given, recycled to him.

Shaking that out of his mind, he tugged up the sweater sleeves. His arms were wrapped up in bandages from his wrists to his elbows. Frustrated at the trouble he'd made for everyone, he tugged at the bandages until they broke and unraveled. What he saw made him gasp.

The gashes in his arms looked a lot worse than they had when he'd been making them, when they'd been bleeding. They were so much worse than the ones he'd made before... Jack was horrified by the harsh reddish brown scabs forming under frightening black stitches.

North and Bunny most definitely had seen the rest of his scars - from what he could tell, they were the ones who fixed him up. He silently thanked MiM that Tooth still had no idea what had happened to him.

He just didn't understand. He'd made deeper cuts before and they never bled. And now...he hated the dull throb in his arms that stemmed from his blood pumping through his veins. It drew out the pain a lot longer than it used to when he'd finished up a cutting session.

However...

The blood flowing through him otherwise was warm. Not unpleasant, but foreign. He wished he knew what it meant.

* * *

It had been ten days since the ordeal with the Guardians. Jamie Bennett sat on his bed, staring out the window, holding his stuffed rabbit.

It seemed so surreal. Like it was all just a dream.

Jamie shook his head. No, it couldn't have been. The thrill of the sled ride on the ice, the feel of the nightmare sand turning golden at his touch, Jack Frost's comfortingly chilly hug... It was real, and Jamie knew it.

He looked back to the window and almost cried out in surprise. The flash of white hair he'd met only ten days ago was bobbing a bit outside his window. "Jack!" he whispered, running quietly to open it and let him in. "You came back!"

Jamie jumped into the Guardian's arms the moment his bare feet hit the carpet. Jack fell back a bit and grunted, but wrapped his arms around the child. "Of course I came back, Jamie." Jack's voice seemed a little raspy, but he smiled a little, and as though he'd been reading Jamie's thoughts, added, "I couldn't leave for too long and have you worrying that it was all a dream."

Jamie grinned sheepishly at him. "Don't worry, I'll never stop believing." He hugged Jack again, burying his face into his chest, wanting to assure himself for future doubt that the older boy was in fact real. But something about him felt off. He pulled his head back to look at his new friend. "Jack, you're kind of warm." When the teen looked down at him in confusion, he rolled his eyes and continued. "Last time I hugged you, you were cold."

* * *

When Jamie hugged him, he winced in pain and prayed to MiM that his stitches didn't pop open. He couldn't bear to have his first believer see him bleeding from the wrists - it'd be way too obvious in a white sweater.. He didn't want Jamie exposed to that kind of thing. Not until he was old enough to know that it was a bad idea. His heartbeat sped up as the child clung to him, and he thought it was from the pain.

But the warm feeling was spreading through him again, and it felt so much better than the day Jamie had hugged him goodbye.

"Yeah, Jamie...I guess I am." He ruffled the kid's hair and grinned at him. At that moment, Manny shone down through the window, and spoke to Jack in the same way he had 300 years ago when he'd told him his name.

The thought was simply implanted in Jack's head, at the front of his mind. He understood completely now. Finding his center, becoming a Guardian, and experiencing the joy of gaining a believer (one who loved him _already_ like a member of his own family) had warmed Jack's heart. Literally.

Jack wasn't just a spirit now. He was alive.


	8. But Not Living

Alive.

What did that even mean? "Alive".

It was late spring in Burgess, so Jack really didn't want to stay too long. Heat didn't really hurt him, considering he did have to cross the equator twice a year and that was _really really warm_, but it did bother him enough to make him want to avoid it. Besides, it was late, and Jamie had school in the morning. So Jack had gone and begun to fly around aimlessly.

But that might not have been the best idea.

Whenever Jack was alone and not causing mischief or snow days, he was thinking. And thinking, for Jack, was usually nothing good.

He was...alive.

That's what Manny had told him.

Jack thought that he was alive for the past 300 years. If not alive, then what was he?

Alive...yes, he supposed he understood how he wasn't before. His body felt warmer. It still held its frosty pale appearance and still emitted frost when he willed it, but he found that he really needed each breath and that he no longer expelled cold air uncontrollably. It was not an unpleasant sensation, being alive. His body felt good, instead of having no feeling at all.

But why did he feel so empty?

His body felt good on the outside, but it felt like there was a huge piece missing inside of him. There was a hole, in his chest, and the emptiness weighed on him. He felt heavy. And he did not feel like he was truly a living being.

Thinking, for Jack, was usually nothing good. It was when he _thought_ about things that he would do something like cut himself.

Jack decided that before, he had simply existed. That yes, he was now, in fact, alive.

But that did not mean he could live.

He was far too broken to live.


	9. Memories

"I don't know where he went, North," Bunny explained for the third time to old Russian. "The bugger's scent is _everywhere_. I can't track which direction he went in."

He'd wasted no time when Jack had flown off in popping out into the snow to chase him down. But a blizzard had started raging outside, and in that kind of weather, it's easy to get turned around. Especially when your target smells like snow. When Bunny's feet started to go numb, he thought it best to go back inside and face North.

Bunny was doing his best to look more annoyed than concerned. After all, he and Jack hadn't been on good terms until he'd taken the Guardians to the Warren, and even after that, he'd yelled at Jack for ruining Easter. Remembering that, his ears wilted. He'd never apologized for it; they'd just shoved it aside during the warm fuzzies over their only believer and didn't bring it back up.

Something else was really bothering him, though, and he was itching to get it off his chest.

North must have known something was up - he was intuitive that way - because a large hand clamped down on his shoulder. "Bunny...you 'ave been most concerned about Jack since finding him. Vat is on your mind?"

Bunny wouldn't have leaned into the touch if he wasn't feeling so lost. "Blizzard of...'68..."

"Vat?"

Bunny had lifted Jack by the sweatshirt and the boy had grabbed onto his paws to try and make him let go. "After the blizzard, I found Jack standing on the outskirts of the storm. I was mad, North... I mean, he ruined Easter for those kids that year." North didn't answer, probably waiting for the Pooka to continue. "Those scars of his weren't there then, North. I saw his arms that day." He remembered thinking about how pale the boy was, how he looked so much like a corpse. But he did _not_ see any scars.

Bunny had grown accustomed to seeking out scars on people, especially kids. If someone had gone and hurt themselves in any way, it was usually because they'd lost hope somehow.

Sometime after Easter 1968, the kid had lost his hope.

...

"Oh, crikey."

* * *

Jack was on his way south, flying over the Bermuda Islands, when fatigue hit him.

He couldn't understand why he was so tired. He crossed over the equator all the time to deliver snow to the southern hemisphere this time of year, so it wasn't the heat. But he shifted uncomfortably in the wind's embrace as it took him lower, to an isolated part of one of the islands. He knew what happened to the snow when he slept, and he knew he was about to sleep whether he was on the ground or in the air.

He would prefer it take him while he was already on the ground.

Of course, this fatigue wasn't normal at all for Jack. He didn't really enjoy the times he's slept before, and he'd actually never needed it before he became a Guardian.

"Alive..." he repeated. That's right. He was alive now...and exhausted. Completely drained. Probably needed to sleep to keep functioning like a living person, rather than a frozen corpse. He hoisted himself up into a tree branch, and it wasn't long before the young sprite was suffering a restless, nightmarish sleep.

_"Jack, how could you?"_

_He turned, throwing his staff over his shoulder casually and throwing on his best I-don't-care smile, to see who was accusing him of something this time._

_The face he saw made him stop in his tracks. "You?"_

_"Jack, _how could you_? Look at this!" The little girl gestured to the side. "Look at what you've done!"_

_The sight was terrifying. Before him lay thousands of people on the ground, their bodies gray and lifeless and dusted over with a thin layer of snow. _His _snow._

_"You destroyed all those lives with your powers, Jack. Why? Why would you do that?"_

A tingling sensation woke him up, much to his relief. A barn owl had chosen his staff as a nice perch, for whatever reason he could not figure out, and the contact had disturbed the boy. But waking up didn't chase away the dream he'd been having...

It was dawn; he'd been sleeping for around six hours. Around him was a small, fluffy circle of snow that was already melting. It would melt under the sun before anyone found it.

Shaking his head clear of any thoughts but snow and ice and _fun_, he flew up into the skies and continued on. South of the equator, it was time for winter.

* * *

Bunny didn't know where else to go for a memory, so he headed off to Tooth Palace. Jack's baby teeth held a memory from long after they all fell out; Jack had explained briefly before the Guardians all parted ways what had happened; rather, he told them that he saw the memory of how he became Jack Frost, and why. He hoped they'd hold memories from after he became Jack Frost, since Tooth certainly wouldn't have collected any baby teeth from a teenage-looking spirit.

He needed to know what drove Jack over the edge.

A part of him, a very small part, knew that it would only make him feel cripplingly guilty upon finding out that he was to blame, but that didn't stop him from hoping that it was something else, something else had made Jack begin hurting himself.

North had tracked down Sandy, and the pair had beat him to Tooth Palace. But they waited for him to arrive before finally explaining to Tooth everything that happened. She remained silent, a horrified expression on her face. Baby Tooth fluttered by her side, tears falling from her eyes and sobs shaking her tiny form.

It took a few minutes for Tooth to regain her sense of self. "Yes, Bunny... If Jack opened his tooth box, his memories would have been stored inside. Opening the box the normal way would send the memories directly to him - the good memories, of course - but there's another way..." Her wings suddenly stopped and she fell to the ground. North gently held her up. "We usually only use it for bad memories. There's a special button...we use it sometimes when a child desperately needs a certain memory to replace the bad one in their heads. It only shows the memory to those touching the box, from a third person point of view, but it's useful."

Bunny saw the haunted look flash in her eyes. He knew that children sometimes had to go through very traumatizing events, and these were the kids who needed Tooth the most. To think that she had _watch_ kids go through that...he supposed that was what made her so determined to do her job. Her center, as North would put it. What makes her a Guardian.

"Well then...what are we waitin' for?"

Everyone, with some hesitation, put their hands on the box. It took a lot of shooing to get poor little Baby Tooth to let go.


	10. Memories: Bunny

Bunny was the first to push the button.

* * *

The palace around them fell away, and before them floated Jack.

_Oh, man. I never thought the Easter Bunny would turn out to be so cool._

Jack's voice startled Bunny. His lips hadn't been moving...had they? Tooth answered his question before he asked. "We'll be connected to Jack's thoughts and emotions for the duration of the memory, so try not to get too freaked out." But her voice was shaking. She knew this wasn't going to be a pleasant experience for any of them.

_I bet kids would like finding Easter Eggs under the snow as they played! I bet Bunnymund would like to see that, too..._

The words made Bunny flinch. He didn't know that's what Jack intended to do. It just made watching him create the snow that much harder...especially when he felt Jack's giddy nervousness turn into panic at the start of the blizzard.

_Oh, no... What have I done? _It like no time had passed. Suddenly Jack was standing in a clear patch, staring out in horror at his work.

"Well, if it isn't Jack Frost." He was amazed at how angry he sounded to Jack. It certainly hadn't sounded that bad to him when he said it; sarcastic and irritated, maybe.

_Whoa...he knows who I am? _"You know my name?" _I didn't think anyone knew me. Why didn't he ever say something to me before?_

"A'course I do. Everyone does. Yer a nuisance to most'a us, at best." As memory-Bunny hopped forward, real Bunny turned his face away from his fellow Guardians as they looked at him. He didn't know if it was more sympathy, knowing he didn't actually mean the words or anger at him for speaking for them (and falsely, at that) he felt a crawling sensation up the back of his neck from their gazes.

_I think I'm in trouble... _Memory-Jack flinched when Bunny grabbed his shirt and pushed him against the tree. His hands found Bunny's wrists and he grasped onto them, tugging at them lightly.

Bunny saw the quick, automatic glance of his memory form at Jack's wrists to confirm there were no scars on the child - the child, dear MiM, he was still just a child - (he found himself straining out of habit to check them now, even though he knew none were there) before continuing what he was saying. "Lookit what you've done, 'ere! You've screwed up Easter and devastated an entire state! I knew you were annoyin' and irresponsible, but this is downright reckless!"

They all felt the pain swelling slowly in Jack's chest. He wanted to explain himself and apologize, but they felt the words stop in his throat when Bunny started talking again.

"Why don't you stop being such a burden?" _A burden?_ "Do everyone a favor and get lost, you bloody bit'a Frostbite." Bunny barely had time to make a mental note to never _ever_ call Jack by that nickname again before the worst words he had ever said to the boy slipped out of his memory form's mouth. "Yer worse than useless!"

Bunny turned away from his friends even more. He'd been so angry, but that didn't excuse the things he'd said; it wouldn't excuse them even if Jack had done it all on purpose, either. The four of them felt something rush forward from the back of Jack's very soul. Something terrible and pitiful. None of them had expected it, but they felt that Jack had.

_They know me? They know who I am and they don't even like me? They've never even met me! They've never even thought to talk to me... Why don't they like me? How dare they ignore me! How dare they not like me without even trying to...to... _The sorrow flared up into anger, and Jack started to yell. "Hey! No one got hurt! I just wanted to have a little fun. And you think I'm useless? What do you do for anyone? Leave eggs that rot and stink up the whole town if they're not found? Yeah, I can definitely see the use in that!"

They all knew that Jack didn't mean those words as he said them. Bunny knew that he still deserved them. He knew he always would.

_'Yer worse than useless!'_ If the situation weren't so horrible, it would have been funny hearing Jack's inner dialogue emerge in Bunny's accent as his words were repeated back to him. _Am I, really?_ Flashes of people frozen to death, starved in their cabins having been trapped by storms, people slipping and cracking their heads open on the ice, and so many other tragedies related to his work sped through all of their minds. Tooth let small wail of utter despair. Jack had memorized every detail of their deaths as some sick way of punishment - he hated seeing death and deserved to see every one he caused.

Each of them shuddered as the anger drained and they felt the empty, heavy ache that Jack felt.

Jack hit the ground in front of a hardware store with thoughtless grace. In the background, Bunny could hear workers complaining about the snowstorm, and the slight twinge of guilt that pressed at Jack's mind...but what really hit him hard was how lost the boy felt, so devoid of hope. Not that he needed to feel it for himself to know - it was written all over his face.

A sense of dread filled them all - their own, not Jack's - as he wandered into the building. They watched him aimlessly walk up and down the aisles, not even knowing why he was in there. They watched him crumble a little bit more as someone looked right through him, but he dove out of the way before she could walk through him. They watched him as his eyes fell on the package of industrial razors. Bunny's heart sank as he recognized the fresh, sterile piece of metal as the rusty old thing that had been in Jack's hand when he found him in the snow.

There was no focus to his thoughts. It was only a mysterious attraction to the blade; a sick curiosity that halfway filled the emptiness as he vaguely recalled seeing a news article about self harm. The anticipation as he slipped the thing into his pocket and flew out of the store at a speed that rivaled Tooth's. The growing sense of terrifying excitement as perched on a power line and ripped open the package.

Suddenly, it was no longer watching from third person. It was like they _were_ Jack (which caused a horrible disorientation that made them cry out), as he fondled the sharp piece of steel carefully in his hand. As he tugged up his sleeve and let out a desperate sob at the realization of what he was about to do. As he sobbed again, knowing that he wouldn't stop himself for anything.

Jack's first assault on the flesh hadn't been hesitant at all. In fact, it was more like he was aiming at his wrist with an axe, hoping to chop the appendage off. The sting made all of them cry out in pain, and then shudder in ashamed pleasure at the release of the painful emotions that had been building in their poor little Jack.

Even through the swirling, raging, confusing emotions that plagued them until the light flashed brightly in their eyes, Bunny didn't fail to notice that none of Jack's cuts bled.

* * *

"Hello, mate." Memory-Jack spun around in the alleyway, his staff at the ready. "Been a long time. Blizzard of '68, I believe." First came the sense of relief that the figure he'd been chasing was only Bunny, just before the worry and fear took over in his heart. "Easter Sunday, wasn't it?"

"Bunny!" His emotions didn't reflect on his face at all as he smiled teasingly, and they all wondered if it was because they'd all been carved into his arms instead. "You're not still mad about that...are ya?" Through the twinges of guilt, he managed a very convincing innocent look as he leaned on - no, hugged - his staff for support.

"Yes," came the growl. Bunny had never felt more ashamed of himself. He felt the empty hole where Jack's hope should have been grow a little bigger as the light flashed in their eyes again.

* * *

"Y'know what I think? I think we just dodged a bullet. I mean, what's this clown know about brinin' joy to children, anyway?" Bunny regretted those words, too. He'd seen first hand how capable Jack was as a Guardian, and even experienced the pure joy of Jack's magic himself in the Warren.

Rage bubbled in Jack's chest. _I can't believe him. _But he put on a snarky smile and turned to face them. "Uh, you ever hear of a snow day? I know it's no hard boiled egg," the tone was the same from his first words to Bunny in '68, "but kids _like_ what I do."

"But none of them believe in you, do they?" Why did Bunny ever bring that up in an argument with him? He felt Jack's memory of being walked through, not believed in, at the same time as he felt his own. "See, you're invisible, mate. It's like you don't even exist." There was no coherent thought, just pain, and it was all it took for Jack to not cry right then and there.

"Bunny!" Bunny was so glad when memory-Tooth interrupted him. "Enough."

It was automatic. He didn't want to insult Bunny, he really didn't, but if he didn't say something he thought was funny he really would start crying. "No! The kangaroo's right." _Why did I just say that?__  
_

"Th-the what? What did you call me? I'm not a kangaroo, mate."

"Oh...and this whole time, I thought you were." Once he started, he couldn't stop. "If you're not a kangaroo, what are you?" Somewhere under the guilt and anger Jack felt, it was a legit question, and Bunny might have even been amused if it weren't for for all led to it. The boy honestly could not imagine that he was really a bunny rabbit when he was 6'1.

"I'm a bunny. The Easter Bunny. People believe in me."

Bunny remembered how Jack's eyes had filled with tears right before him, but he'd tried at the time to write it off as something else (but what, he didn't know). But feeling tears stinging his own eyes from the connection with Jack made him finally sink to the ground. Why had he said those things?

* * *

_Now they have a reason to hate me..._

"He has to go." Jack's heart sank. _What?_ "We should never have trusted you!"

Bunny remembered clearly the look of shock on Jack's face when he said that. This was the Easter not two weeks ago that Pitch had ruined. He remembered that, for an instant, he wanted to take it back and even hug the boy he thought had betrayed them because the look was just that heartbreaking. It was nothing compared to the way Jack felt when he said it, though.

The ringing in Jack's ears drowned out Bunny's speech about Easter and hope. The light took them away, back to Tooth Palace.

* * *

It was a half an hour before Bunny could finally move again. It was even longer before any of them had the courage to look at the next set of Jack's painful memories.


	11. Memories: Sandy

Sandy volunteered to go next. Jack's memories of Bunnymund were horrible, and he figured they could use some that weren't so bad. Although, he was really hoping that there were none to be associated with him at all. He hadn't ever done anything to the spirit of winter, had he? Jack was always happy to play with his dream sand whenever he was near, and Sandy was always pleased to feel his hand running through the current because it was a direct connection to his magic.

Hesitating only a moment, he hit the button.

* * *

To his dismay, the palace fell away, revealing Sandy flying about over a village on his dream cloud, sending dream sand tendrils out to the rickety old houses.

Jack was nowhere to be found. Fear and guilt gripped his heart. He didn't want to see what was happening.

Memory-Sandy flew over the lake, stopping when he saw something laying under a blanket of snow on the ice. He drifted down and saw Jack, laying there.

Memory-Sandy shivered and so did real Sandy, remembering all too well what he'd thought that day. It was probably 300 years ago, not long after Jack had been reborn, apparently. The four of them could see just how pale and deathly Jack looked when he slept; like a child who had just crawled out onto the lake and died. Memory-Sandy's face twisted in pain when he noticed the child was not breathing. He didn't really need to; breathing when Jack was awake was probably just a reflex. But Sandy hadn't known that at the time.

Memory-Sandy figured that as horrifying it was to see a dead child while he was out working, it would do nothing to give him golden sand and it was not his job to return a corpse to the already suffering town. So the memory-Sandy flew away, leaving Jack there alone on the lake.

He hoped that was it, but Jack was asleep the entire time so that couldn't have been the whole memory.

"Sandy, this might be an associated projection - the box may be taking your memory and jumbling it with his."

His worry and Tooth's words were confirmed when he blinked and was standing in what he recognized fully well as a dream. No...not a dream. A nightmare. Jack was standing before a little girl with brown hair. The two of them were by the lake. "Don't you see me?!" The girl was crying and Jack just couldn't understand why. "Please, look at me! Don't cry! Please don't cry..." He reached out to put a hand on the girl's shoulder, but it went right through her. They felt the pain stab at him. For some reason, it was worse than any pain he'd felt before when the villagers walked through him. This burned him right to his soul and _deeper_.

The girl, crying, ran away from the spirit she could not see and Jack curled up in the snow, crying himself.

The Guardians were thrown back out of his dream as he awoke, panic and sorrow filling him. Drowning him.

The light took them away.

* * *

It was really a flurry of dreams this time. Or rather, Jack's nightmares.

Sometimes, people who had died at his hand (no matter that it was indirectly) haunted him. Chased him. Attacked him. Their faces flooded his vision before tears blurred them out.

Sometimes, it was the girl, crying again by the lake. Not speaking.

Sometimes the dreams mingled together, and that was what drew the worst responses. The girl accused him of being a murderer, reckless, and terrible as she pointed at the dead.

Finally, Jack woke up. He looked to the sky, and saw golden tendrils of sand floating above his head. _Sandman?_

Guilt hit Sandy like a train. His job was to bring dreams to sleeping kids. This kid, spirit or not, he had failed. Sandy, like Bunny, sank to the floor as they felt Jack resolve to never sleep again.

* * *

The next memory was by far the worst. It was the moment when Sandy had been turned into a Fearling.

He didn't know how terrifying it had looked to the other Guardians. He only knew that he had to be brave as he went down, lest Pitch gain another small victory of taking down an opponent who held no honor in death. But from a third person point of view, it was even more horrible.

The feelings that swelled in Jack surprised Sandy, though. After failing him for 300 years, Jack was still flying at full speed at the Nightmares to try to save him.

Sandy had seen and felt the incredible anger Jack's power held, because he was one of the nightmares under Pitch's control. But he hadn't registered it until he saw it from the sidelines. The only image in Jack's mind as he blew the wave of black sand away was Sandy disappearing from view.

It hurt him so much to know that Jack was affected like that by his defeat, even after having ignored him for so long.

* * *

If even Sandy had hurt Jack that much, he feared for North and Tooth when it came their time to face their actions.


	12. Memories: North

North really didn't want to know what bad memories Jack could have associated with him. And more than that, he really didn't want the others to see it either. But he had seen both Bunny's and Sandy's, so it was only fair that the others be aware that they were not alone in hurting Jack. Not that it would fix anything; none of them would ever recover experiencing even a fraction Jack's pain, knowing it was from their hands.

His large finger found the button, and the scene changed before them.

* * *

It was only a two years after Jack had been born that he heard of Santa Claus.

The little village by the lake was his home, Burgess was its name, but he was in Europe. It didn't take long for him to pick up the language of the country he was in - Russian, maybe? - so when a mother told her son (who'd been being a huge jerk to his little sister) that he had to be good "even this time of year" or Santa wouldn't come the next Christmas, it peaked his curiosity.

Jack did his research for the rest of that winter _and_ through the whole summer.

He'd long since figured out that winter and snow would come without him. The snow he came upon in the colder areas of the world, where it was always snowy, didn't seem the same as the snow he brought with him. Something was off about it, but he didn't think anyone would notice if he tried to take a break from bringing unexpected snow and ice.

September came, and he headed right back to Burgess. He intended to stick around there this year.

There was a family that he'd become quite attached to there, actually. The mother was a sweet woman, and the daughter was about eight or nine. She had mousey brown hair that Jack found very endearing on her. There was no father, and the pair were actually quite sad a lot of the time. He liked them, though. Even though they couldn't see him, they were really nice, and they seemed to like his cool presence.

He hung around that house, hoping that if he pretended he was part of the family long enough, Santa might come bring him gifts too. After all, Burgess was his home, and if Santa brought him gifts it might mean he's actually real to someone. Right?

The daughter had come down with a high fever. It hit its scariest when the woman kept her close to the fire, and it wasn't long before they realized she needed to be in the cold. So the little girl stayed in bed, constantly sweating, constantly uncomfortable, with her window open. It made the rest of the house bitterly cold and probably bothered her mother, but all that mattered was keeping her daughter from overheating.

He stayed in her room with her for most of the time, keeping her cool, and only left to gather food for them to eat.

On Christmas Eve, he finally inched forward to the little girl's bed. North recognized the girl, but only just. He recognized every child that showed up on his lists, but it had been well over 200 years since he'd seen this particular child. Her name was Faith Overland. They watched as Jack gently put a hand to her forehead, and winced as they all felt hot how it was to his cool skin.

Jack was more careful with his power than they'd ever seen him. He let a little trickle of frost spread across her forehead. She'd been whimpering in her sleep, but they only realized when she calmed at the touch of cold. They all took a closer look and saw that he'd laced it with his magic of joy.

It was Christmas Day, and Faith got out of bed on her own. She still didn't see Jack, but the cold touch to her forehead had finally chased most of the fever away. He followed her in as she lept into her mother's bed, still affected by Jack's magic, giggling and yelling for her to wake up and see what Santa brought her.

The memory so far had been months compressed into minutes, and for the most part it was nice, though Jack had felt a longing to be seen. But all of it crashed down on him when he realized that Santa did not care that he had been with the family for so long and did not bring him any presents. He didn't exist to him.

Jack stayed with the Overland family a little bit longer, just until Faith was completely better. Then, he left, his childlike wonder completely drained out of him.

It didn't dawn on them until they were pulled out their connection with Jack when the lights brought them on to the next memory. The little girl, Faith, was the same girl who'd been in Jack's nightmares.

* * *

"Jack, I don't think you understand what it is we do." They felt the elation of Tooth's hand on his shoulder as she spoke, the wonderful feeling of being touched, despite the look of confusion on his face as he leaned away from her, mostly worried she would shove her fingers in his mouth again. She fluttered over to the globe. "Each of those lights is a child."

"A child who believes." They recognized this scene...it was when he'd first made it to the Pole. "And good or bad, naughty," memory-North glanced at Jack for a brief moment, "or nice, we protect them."

Memory-Tooth, by that point, was in fact pulling at his lips, trying to observe his teeth, and confusion and slight irritation flared up in the boy. But the Guardians still caught his first thought before Tooth had distracted him. _Naughty or nice? But what about me?_

* * *

There were definitely some good memories with North, most of which occurred after his initial kidnapping. North, showing him the workshop. North, giving Jack the center of his nesting doll until he could find his purpose. North, assuring him that he had done what he could to try to save Sandy, and in turn had saved all of them. Assuring him that he was a Guardian and that he would learn what he was meant to do.

They felt Jack's longing for a family, and North was pleased for the moment to feel Jack beginning to forgive him for his ignorance and even...think of him like a father.

But his heart shattered, as did that thought in Jack, in his memory of Easter.

"That is why you weren't here? You were with Pitch?!"

"No! Listen...listen..." He wanted them so badly to understand what happened, but he could find the words. "I'm sorry..." None of them had realized how broken his voice was when this was actually happening. Nothing stopped them from hearing it now. "I didn't mean for this to happen."

Jack, painfully, still thought of North like a father, but deep inside him was the regret of failing him so miserably...it was the same feeling they'd felt from him in his memory of '68 when he realized he'd screwed things over for his hero.

North realized that when he'd flown off after this happened, he'd probably gone to cut himself again.


	13. Memories: Tooth

"Hello, Jack. I've heard a lot about you."

Tooth had wasted no time hitting the button. She wanted this to be over and done with, like pulling a sticky bandage off. What came first was the first time they'd ever met.

Jack didn't even have time to be upset that she had never visited him, either, as she continued. "And your teeth!"

"M-my what?" _Oh god, what is she doing?!_

"Open up! Are they really as white as they say? Yes! Oh! They really DO sparkle like freshly fallen snow!" It was Tooth's biggest relief as her words and actions drew more amusement out of the frost spirit than anything else, but also extremely embarrassing when they all felt Jack's very accurate first-impression on Tooth; she and her fairies were fangirls.

While memory-North was busy trying to wake up Sandy, Jack glanced over at Tooth, who was giving instructions to her fairies, too busy to acknowledge anyone in the room. _Being too busy still isn't an excuse...if you wanted to meet me that badly, you should have come and found me.__  
_

* * *

She was insanely relieved that he enjoyed hanging out with her. "This was always the part I liked most...seeing the kids." _She really cares about everyone, doesn't she? _"Why did I ever stop doing this?" _She looks like a mother._

"Hum. A little different up close, huh?"

"Thanks for being here, Jack. I wish I'd known about your memory. I could have helped you." Jack quickly realized that Tooth was incredibly wounded by her failure to help him remember his life. For a moment, he wished that she'd never found out. As the Guardian of Memories, knowing someone had been out there who desperately needed her probably ripped her apart inside. Tooth was glad he understood how sincere she was when she said that. _She honestly wishes she could help. She didn't know._

"Yeah, well..." _I don't know what I'm supposed to be feeling right now._ "Look, let's just get you taken care of, then it's Pitch's turn." _I still wish that maybe she or one of her fairies, if they liked me so much, had come to visit._

* * *

The look on memory-Tooth's face when she saw the box in his hand made his stomach twist. "Where did you get that?" Tooth let out a soft gasp when she felt it, probably ashamed at making him feel that way.

He couldn't find the words, or even the thoughts, to explain what had happened. Just the panicked, fuzzy memory of everything from only moments ago played out in his head.

"Where's Baby Tooth?" The cold chill they all felt was so different from Jack's normal chill. It was pure fear. Pitch had Baby Tooth. "Oh, Jack... What have you done?"

_What have I done?_

* * *

Jack truly felt like he deserved to be shunned by the Guardians.

Tooth looked so happy and relieved to see him when they all arrived at Jamie's house. At first he was happy - did she think he'd gone off and gotten hurt or something? But then he realized what was really on her mind - she was relieved to see that he wasn't with Pitch, that her accusation hadn't driven him away like it could have.

He didn't have enough time to be angry, because she hit the ground and he was suddenly filled with worry.

"You okay?" Tooth remembered how guilty she'd felt for blaming him for going after his teeth, and how embarrassed she was when he set that aside to make sure that she was alright. She felt mortified, feeling _his_ side of what happened here, and let her head drop.


	14. Memories: Understanding

The four Guardians stood in a circle, staring down at the tooth box that belonged to their fifth. They wanted to stop. They didn't want to feel Jack's feelings anymore. They mostly wanted to find him and hug him and apologize and never let him go again.

But the Moon had other plans. Manny's rays fell upon the box, bright and focused. The four had no time to react before the button pushed in and they were thrown once again into Jack's memories.

* * *

Darkness, and cold, and fear.

The four held their breaths for reasons unknown. Whatever was happening right now, it was dark and freezing and poor Jack was terrified..

Jack's eyes opened to a light behind what looked like ice, which was confirmed when the ice cracked open and Jack arose from the water, gasping, shivering, blinking the uncomfortably cold substance from his eyes and staring up at the moon.

All his fears went away.

Tooth made a cooing noise - Jack's lips, nose, cheeks, and eyes were a pinkish color that none of them could deny was utterly adorable. The way he was blinking and sputtering, you'd think he had just been born.

It was a sudden thought. _Jack Frost. _And they knew. He _had_ just been born. He'd just learned his own name.

He thought the stick was magic because of the way it lit up when he touched it with his foot. His shock at the glowing in the twisted wood flared and caused the frost power to shoot out of it like it was a conduct, creating a pattern on the frozen lake.

Watching him like this, with childlike innocence and wonder, both warmed the Guardians and crushed their hearts. Jack would never be this way again. It didn't stop them from smiling as he jumped up and down excitedly, tapping everything he could with his staff, running and circles and hooting in joy.

The wind caught on to the joy coming from the child and lifted him up...but it couldn't hold onto the newborn and Jack fell, bumping into branches and disturbing leaves as he went. Bunny grunted and struggled to hold back the laugh that formed when Jack hit a particularly thick branch and held onto it for dear life, giggling a bit.

All of them clung heavily to Jack's feelings, pushing away their own, wanting to feel that blissful and wonderful innocence for a little while.

That was when Jack saw the little village of Burgess.

The wind tried, they knew it really tried, to hold the child up. But Jack was clumsy. Ridiculously clumsy. It was almost embarrassing. But even as Jack hit a snowbank, he still laughed while brushing itself off.

The four were so caught up in Jack's joy at existing that they didn't even register what was going to happen until he leaned down to speak to a child.

The child passed right on through him. And so did someone else. And another person. And another.

One time had been enough for Bunny. Being walked through felt like your soul was being whipped. But the pain that he shared with Jack was muted. It didn't hurt nearly half as much as it had when that kid had walked through him on Easter.

Everything they'd felt Jack feel today...it was a memory, really and truly. It wasn't anywhere near as painful as the real thing.

* * *

The elves' bells were ringing, and all the yetis were gathered around the three Guardians as they mourned the loss of Sandy.

Jack too, mourned. He was sitting by a window, gripping his blade, a cut for having failed Sandy, a cut for having lost Pitch, a cut because he was scared of his own untapped, uncontrolled powers, a cut because he was scared of what was coming, and more, just because he was tired of it all.

He almost couldn't stop, but somehow managed to shove his sleeves down and the blade in his pocket before North walked in.

North's heart seized. He'd been so close to catching him in the act then.

* * *

Something pulled at Jack's heartstrings when he saw Sophie fall asleep in Bunny's arms, something that pulled at him to offer to take her home.

Under normal circumstances, when Sophie was awake, she wouldn't have known he was there because no one ever told her about who Jack Frost was. She didn't believe in him, and so her mind told her he wasn't there even though he was. But asleep, nothing was able to tell her that he wasn't. He was real enough to hold her. Maybe it was this that urged him to carry the little girl home, the desire to be physically acknowledged. He wasn't sure. He felt a connection to this little girl - and her brother - that he couldn't explain.

Without his normal grace, but still a strangely practiced ease at holding a sleeping child, he deposited her into her bed. Were it not for Baby Tooth hovering - not that he minded, of course - he would have let her cling to him. He would have curled up in bed around her, kissed her forehead and tucked her in, safe and sound and warm.

* * *

"Jack? Jack!" _I know that voice._

So did the Guardians. They watched him look away from Sophie's window. They watched as Baby Tooth urged him away, not hearing the voices he heard. They felt the longing, and a spike in the protective mood leftover from carrying Sophie home.

They felt their own knowing fear and his curiosity as he jumped into the hole that would lead him to Pitch's lair. Horror, then anger, at the fairies in the cages. Fear, and curiosity, as his name was called again from the mountains of tooth boxes below.

Every one of them winced as Jack was suddenly distracted from his search for his memories by the rage that bubbled up, accompanied by the image of Sandy, at the voice behind him. Jack turned around and shot ice at the shadow who had spoken, leaving them surprised and ashamed. They had all thought the memories was all he cared about.

* * *

"Do you want them, Jack? Your memories?" Pitch grinned.

For a moment, Jack almost took them. But something in his mind told him that if he did, it would mean he sided with Pitch. Something irrational in his mind told him that he would betray the Guardians and he refused.

None of them could stand it. They'd thought he had.

* * *

"They'll never accept you. Not really."

"Stop it!" _But it's true._

"After all, you're not one of them."_ I'm really not._

"You don't know what I am."_ Yes, he does._

"'Course I do! You're Jack Frost! You make a mess wherever you go. Why, you're doing it right now." He knew it was true the moment he caught the box.

He lashed out angrily, and ended up locked out of the dungeon. Tooth whimpered; she'd blamed him for it, but his first thought was about losing Baby Tooth.

* * *

He landed in Antarctica - and not on his feet, either - with the blade already in hand.

Suddenly, again, they were Jack and they watched helplessly as he tugged up his sleeves.

There were so many of them. Old white scars from over the past fifty years, healing lavender cuts from recent weeks, and the fresh ones from just a day ago covered in blue frost.

Jack attacked himself with a fierceness that was filled with even more loathing than he'd felt with Pitch after Sandy'd been defeated. Jack actually hated himself more than he hated Pitch, and all the Guardians retched with the connection. Tooth sobbed and hiccuped.

They all froze in fear as Jack realized that cutting himself like this wasn't going to be enough this time. Jack stood, and ran at full speed at the cliff, and Bunny had a terrifying moment of illogical panic as he thought that Jack was going to kill himself before he remembered that it was only a memory, and Jack was alive, and that he just wanted to throw the memories away instead.

* * *

"It's okay! It's okay... Don't look down, just look at me."

It was the boy on the box. The brown haired boy. Jack Overland, they knew. With his sister, Faith Overland. "Jack...I'm scared."

They felt Jack's panic, but it didn't match his actions. "I-I know, I know. But you're gonna be alright." He tried to inch his way to his sister, wincing as the ice cracked under him. _If I get too close, I might knock her in... _"You're not gonna fall in." _What do I do?_ "We're gonna have a little fun instead!"

They all recognized it as the words he had said to Jamie. This was the memory Jack had told them about. "No we're not!" Faith's voice came out in a sob.

"Would I trick you?" _What if I'm not fast enough? What if she falls in?_

"Yes! You always play tricks!" The ice under her cracked a little more.

He forced back his desperate sob and turned it into a chuckle. "Oh, alright. Well, not-not-not this time. I promise, I promise." His voice was unsettling, especially to himself. "You're gonna be...you're gonna be fine." The look on her face as she gazed at him was full of fear. "You have to believe in me."

North grunted. Sandy looked to his feet. Tooth let out a wail. Bunny's ears pinned back against his head.

But Faith trusted Jack with all her heart - it was written all over her face. And as Jack hopped his way across the ice, as he encouraged her to do the same, as he flung her across the lake to safety, they were frozen. They trusted him, too. To save her.

And then he fell into the freezing water.

* * *

The Guardians fell out of Jack's memories and all of them lost their balance and fell to the ground. The memory hadn't ended soon enough for any of them. They had all drowned right alongside Jack.

None of them moved for an agonizingly long time.


	15. Blood

Jack wasn't sure how he felt about bleeding.

He hadn't even been working for a few minutes when curiosity took hold of him. He was alive, and that meant he bled. And he wanted to see it happen again.

One of the Guardians had taken his razor away. At first he was humiliated, but then it grew to mild irritation. He wanted to cut. It helped him.

He didn't even need to at the moment, really, just wanted to. He floated easily above the shelves in the store and sat, perched on his staff patiently for twenty minutes before someone opened the doors to the back storage room.

He took more than one this time. There were packages of three, and he stole two. He thought he should feel bad for stealing, but somehow he didn't really care.

He had shoved the little packages into his jeans pockets, missing his hoodie. It made storing things so much easier. Although, there had been a moment when he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror - he looked _good_ in white. Maybe he'd keep the sweater instead. It's not like North would let him wear something that someone actually needed. It was probably old. They were probably going to throw it out.

The wind was tossing him about and he flowed with it, hooting and hollering as snow fell lightly into the city.

Jack was having a hyper day.

It was much like the day he'd taken Jamie on that sled ride. He didn't care how lonely he was; today he felt light and uncaring. It was a feeling he usually missed on his worse days, and milked dry when he could.

Maybe he was bipolar.

Was it possible that he was bipolar?

He didn't think he was ever depressed when he was Jack Overland. Don't you need to be depressed sometimes in order to be bipolar? He figured he should really learn more about psychology.

* * *

His thoughts were all over the place. It wasn't until he realized that he was tired that he slowed down. But he only just slept...it took a minute to realize that he'd been bounding around in a manic state for two days. But even still, that wasn't so long for someone who never slept.

"Alive..." he repeated to himself. He was really tired, and calming down significantly. He knew eventually that he would fall asleep, and it was probably because he was no longer a walking, talking, corpse-like icicle. He actually needed to sleep now or his heart would get erratic in its work.

Something tugged at the back of his mind. The Guardians. They were sure to be looking for him; well, Bunny most likely. Bunny would be really irritated that Jack had out-raced him and would probably track him down.

He remembered the razors in his pocket. If they found them, they'd take them away again.

Jack shoved his razors under the snow. He found himself in Southern Chile, which was always pleasantly cold to him. He could afford sleep here.

This sleeping thing was kind of annoying to Jack. He figured there wasn't much he could do about it, though. Shrugging it off, he used the last of his energy to create a marker of ice - something that wouldn't be seen, but felt within him, so he could find the razors again. And curling up in the snow, he fell asleep.

* * *

_"Please..."_

_"You killed those people, Jack! How could you? You're a murderer! I hate you!"_

"No!" Jack yelled, startling himself awake. But he couldn't remember what he yelled about. Blinking, he sat up. He was still on the mountain. Alone. No one had come for him.

He swallowed that thought immediately and shame washed over him. Why would he be sad about that? He didn't want attention from the Guardians. He didn't want them to seek him out and take him back to the Pole and keep him on suicide watch or something. He didn't do this for attention. He'd never done it for attention.

He felt a twinge of curiosity from thinking about it. If he bled now, how different would cutting himself be? Obviously he'd have to not cut as deeply so he didn't pass out again...controlling himself was going to be harder now that he'd fallen into the habit of hacking into his skin with no cares to how deep he went.

Deep in his heart he knew it wasn't a good thing to do. He shook his head clear of that and stood up, wanting to seek out his razors, but a grumbling sound coming from his stomach stopped him and he looked to the sky in exasperation, knowing exactly what that meant.

"...Seriously?!"

* * *

He'd been reduced to a thief. He was having quite a bit of fun, though, sneaking around. He didn't rouse the trash cans or boxes in the market, and it seemed that when he held a product, no one could see it. He wished they could, though. It would be really hilarious seeing someone's face as they watched a couple of bunches of bananas float out of the store.

He didn't want to take anything else. It was one thing stealing from an overpriced hardware store in a well-off town, but he was in a tiny one now and stealing produce that people needed. But he knew he would probably need a lot in order to get somewhere that could afford to lose some food. Like Santoff Clausen.

He shook his head clear again. He wouldn't steal from North.

But he was stealing from people who needed it more. Wouldn't stealing from North be better?

He knew that his stomach had been growling, but he didn't realize how hungry he was until he'd managed to shove an entire banana in his mouth without chewing (mostly to silence his own thoughts somehow). Trying to chase away the perverted thoughts that crept their way into his head, making him blush in embarrassment, sputter in defiance in only the presence of himself, and nearly choke on the banana from laughing so hard._  
_

* * *

He was taking a short break in Mexico. It wasn't where he should have been, but he didn't really care much. No one was around to feel the abnormal cold where he was hiding out, and heat was bothering him less and less. Plus, he liked it better up north. Snowing up the southern hemisphere had always been boring.

Before he'd left Chile, he'd opened one of the packages and taken one razor out before burying it again. Now he had five extra, just in case, hidden away where no one would find it.

Now he sat in a tree, fiddling with the new blade in his hand. His last one had been rusty. It left a lot of his cuts infected and almost glowing a lavender color, now, with the blood flow, becoming pink.

He still didn't feel like he needed to cut right now, but curiosity was getting the better of him. He wanted to know how far he could go without passing out like last time. It was better to do it now, when he was calm, anyway...

Jack peeled off his sweater and jeans. If he was going to bleed, he wasn't about to do it on the light colored clothes on which someone could easily see blood stains.

Shaking, he put the blade to his wrist. For a moment, his eyes slid shut. He knew this was wrong. He knew something about this was sick. But he just didn't care. He wanted to know. He wanted it.

The first cut was careful. Ridiculously careful. He was so slow in dragging it across his wrist that he whimpered. Being slow hurt so much more than hacking like a madman. He felt the metal sliding against the sensitive inside walls of the cut, drawing a never-ending shudder from him. He was careful to avoid his stitches. The little cut turned red, but no blood spilled out. He hadn't cut deep enough for blood to spill. He'd only broken the first layer of skin.

He did it again, a little deeper this time, a little quicker. It wasn't as bad as the first one. It felt better, more like what he used to do, but not quite. He watched in fascination as the blood beaded up in the cut and slowly started to run. It wasn't nearly as bad as the last time. He kept watching. The blood ran in thin trails down his arm, and dripped down onto his leg. He kept watching. Frost tried to close up the cut, but his blood, seeming to get warmer, melted it down. He almost laughed out loud.

And then he did. He laughed long and hard at what he was doing to himself.

_I really_ am_ broken._


	16. Confrontation

"That was...that was awful." Bunny was shaking. He was sure the other Guardians were, too.

What had felt to them like hours of emotional turmoil was only a few minutes of actually watching memories.

He looked at his friends. North was sitting up, staring blankly at the box they'd all dropped. Sandy was playing with his sand, probably trying to make himself feel better - he could only seem to make snowflakes and Bunny knew he was only making himself feel worse. Tooth was curled up in a ball, her forehead touching the ground. Her fairies were fluttering around them all, trying in vain to comfort them.

* * *

It took a few days to track down the winter spirit. Bunny bounded about in the southern hemisphere for a straight 48 hours before he finally found the white-haired wonder snoozing in a tree in Mexico, of all places!

He was so relieved to find the kid curled up in the tree instead of on the ground that he didn't notice the smell at first. But his nose wrinkled in distaste as it finally registered.

Dried blood.

His heart dropped into the pit of his stomach. He should have known immediately. Jack didn't like to sleep.

He felt rotten, getting in Jack's personal space like this. He'd gingerly hoisted himself up to the boy and moved to tug up his sleeve.

But who knew the kid was such a light sleeper?

Bunny should have seen the bare foot coming at his face, and yet he still fell out of the tree with a startled and indignant yelp.

"Who the he- B-Bunny?! What are...w-what are you doing?!" Jack's face was turning an interesting shade of red.

"I-I was gonna...I..." Bunny could not find the right words and simply blurted, "I smell it, Jack."

The kid's face twisted. "Leave me alone!" he screamed, and a gust of freezing wind lifted him up and away.

Bunny swore under his breath and dove back into his tunnels to try to track the boy again.

* * *

It was Antarctica, this time, when he found him. He was curled in on himself, leaning against a terrifying black spiky thing. He hopped closer, the whistling of the wind around the spikes covering his sound, and saw why it looked so scary. It was a sculpture, really, of black sand, frozen forever. Like Jack and Pitch had fought it out here.

He recognized the cliff, suddenly, and felt a little sick.

Bunny inched closer, about to make some comment about Mexico, but he bit it back. If he tried, chances are Jack would just run away again. He didn't smell any fresh blood on the boy, so that was a good sign.

"Jack, that is the ugliest tree I have ever seen."

The boy turned to look at him, and for a long moment had a straight face. But the deadpan in Bunny finally seemed to get to him, and he snorted loudly. "At least I can do more than paint eggs that can actually paint themselves."

"My googies are adorable."

"If by adorable, you mean creep-..."

"What's with he bananas?" He honestly hadn't noticed them before. Jack didn't seem to want to finish his sentence. He just shoved an entire banana in his mouth, whole, _mid-word_.

"Ah wush ungrr."

Bunny stared at the child for a minute, watching him shove another banana into his mouth before stifling a laugh. "C'mon, mate. Let's get you some real food before you deepthroat yourself to death." Jack started choking and went to punch Bunny, and he took the opportunity to grab the youngest Guardian's wrist, although carefully avoiding his stitches, and pull him through one of his tunnels back to Santoff Clausen.

He tried not to think about how weird this all was.

* * *

Bunny pulled Jack up directly in North's office. Before he could send any kind of sign to stop the Russian, North had pulled Jack into a careful albeit spine-popping hug. Bunny frantically made a "stop that" motion, but he didn't think North understood very well since he didn't quite let go of Jack but grabbed Bunny into his other arm. North was so dumb sometimes. Bunny cast a glance at the winter spirit - he looked uncomfortable and glared back at the Pooka. Bunny wasn't about to let him in on his plan, though, and growled, "North, put us down.".

The giant man gently put the two other Guardians down and Bunny shook his whole body to re-fluff his fur, earning a snicker from Jack at his animalistic behavior. He smirked. North caught on that time, he was sure, that the boy was laughing and not running away.

"Vat brings you boys 'ere?" North was already back at his desk now.

"We were wonderin' if we could raid yer kitchen without gettin' mauled by the yetis."

"Da, be my guests! More food zan we know vat to do wit here." He waved his hand dismissively, and turned to whisper something to the yeti standing by. The great beast was out the door in a minute. "Jack! I have your clothes, nice and clean, if you want zem back. I know that sweater is a little itchy."

Jack wasn't paying attention. The crazy kid had another banana in his mouth. Bunny sighed. "Go get some food, kid. You smell like a bloody monkey."

* * *

"Bunny, vat vas all dat about?"

Jack had run out of the room and headed towards the kitchen, freezing an elf on his way out.

"He ran away when I brought up his cutting."

"So you..." North trailed off, so Bunny continued.

"I made the bugger laugh and he agreed to come back here with me. I don't think being careful and confronting him directly about it is gonna do any good." He should have known that, anyway. He did watch some kids who self-harm...most of them didn't believe in him, but he still watched. They didn't like being confronted. One particularly lost teen had killed himself when the police were called on him, because he was too scared to deal with the authorities, with the hospital. It broke Bunny's heart and he didn't leave the Warren for two days. "We can't corner him or he'll just keep running away, or worse."

"So vat do you plan we do?"

"I don't know, mate. But at least he's here where we can watch 'im."


	17. Starvation

Jack didn't like being so...annoyingly hungry. He'd been scarfing bananas all day but it didn't seem to really help.

He hadn't paid much attention to North after getting the okay to raid his kitchen. He wasn't sure if he felt good about doing it or not, but his body was telling him to eat first and ask questions later.

But his body didn't quite understand that he'd gotten lost.

Having given in to the primal human instinct of eating when hungry and not caring about anything else, he'd forgotten that he'd only _really_ been in the workshop twice.

Maybe it wasn't the best idea to freeze the elves he saw. He could have asked a yeti, but they were eyeing him warily and it was making him intensely uncomfortable.

Well, if they were gonna look nervous of his presence, he might as well give them a reason to be.

The wind, being more gentle inside the workshop, lifted Jack in the air and he floated about, acting like he was swimming and getting too close to the toys for their comfort. It was annoyingly slow, and he really just wanted to find the kitchen as soon as possible, but the funny whines that escaped the yetis was making it worth it.

Then he ran head-first into something hard, fuzzy, and warm.

"Oh. Hey, Phil."

* * *

Phil had felt the cold air shifting before he saw the boy.

Really, the beast had wanted to catch Jack in midair and hug him tightly. The last time he'd seen him, he was in bed with a ridiculous fever and North had been trying to make him wash his bloody clothes. He didn't want to go near them - it scared him to think about why Jack would have done something like that to himself. He'd caught an uncomfortable glance at the boy's arms while North and Bunnymund had been working on him. It hurt to think about how long Jack had been doing that to himself. He'd known the boy for years and never noticed anything.

But hugging him wouldn't be the best idea. North's orders to not talk about Jack's "visit" had already spread through the workshop, though no one had known why. But he had to talk to the boy, if not about anything else, just to talk to him.

Jack wasn't watching where he was going. He was too busy grinning at a very distressed looking yeti to notice that Phil had stepped out right in front of him, and collided into him enough to knock him out of the air.

"Oh. Hey, Phil."

"_You really should watch where you're going,_" he said, in yetish. Phil knew Jack could understand him. He'd taught the boy yetish, or tried. Jack could translate it to English, but speaking it was a whole different issue. After a few weeks of the kid absolutely butchering every word he said, they finally agreed that since the yetis could understand him anyway, it didn't matter.

"Yeah, well, you shouldn't have been in my way."

Phil chuckled and picked the boy up off the ground, holding him by his ankle. "_So, are you only here to distract the toy makers, or did you want something?_" Jack struggled, playfully. Phil knew that if the boy wanted to, he could just freeze him with his staff. He never had been one to want to hurt people, even if they were holding him like this in a menacing fashion rather than a playful one.

"I was, uh, looking for the kitchen. North said I could get something to eat."

That sent alarms going in Phil's head. Once, he'd offered Jack some food during a yetish lesson. Jack had turned it down, stating simply that he didn't eat. He looked suspiciously at the boy, and then noticed how less cold he felt. "_Jack, is everything alright?_" Jack looked down - or up, in his case - and said nothing. "_If you're hungry, I'll take you to the kitchen, but only if you tell me what's going on with you._"

* * *

Jack really did not want to talk about it. Then again, it was just Phil. But he didn't want to talk about it now, where anyone could listen. "I'll tell you in private," he mumbled. "Okay?" The yeti just nodded and turned, walking down a hallway with Jack's ankle still in hand. He squirmed unhappily. "Hey! You can put me down, now!"

The beast just laughed.

* * *

This couldn't be normal.

He was just too _hungry_.

Phil had carried Jack by the leg all the way to the kitchen, earning amused glances from yetis and giggling and pointing from elves. Jack had taken it upon himself to freeze every elf that laughed, though. He wouldn't dare try to freeze a yeti. The elves were tougher than they looked and could handle it better.

Jack had halfway stuffed his mouth full of a small loaf of bread when Phil finally spoke again. "_So. Talk. Now._" Jack blinked at the beast, the loaf hanging comically out of his mouth. He raised an eyebrow. "_...When you are done with that, of course. Please. I don't need to see your chewed food._"_  
_

Jack swallowed. "Er, I..." He knew what Phil wanted to know. He too remembered having told him that he didn't eat. "Before, I didn't eat." Phil nodded. "Apparently, I'm coming back into an 'alive' state. Like...I was a zombie, I guess..." Phil gaped at him, not saying a word, with a confused look on his face. "Like... I froze to death." No response. "And I've been frozen ever since."

"_I still don't understand what you're getting at, kiddo._"

Jack smiled. "I'm not frozen anymore. And I think that means I have to e-" He would have continued, but he felt what he knew to be bile coming up his throat.

Too much food. _Too much food._

He ran as fast as his legs could carry him and leaped out the nearest window, dashing through the snow before doubling over a fair distance away from the fortress.

* * *

A helpless sob escaped him as he retched a second time, his food from the past few days being rejected bit by bit. Tears streamed down his face from the lack of air and the pain in his body. He clenched at the snow beneath him as more of the foul-tasting vomit came up. His whole body shook and he let out a wail when he had his throat back in his own control.

He almost curled up and put his forehead in the snow, but he didn't dare considering what he'd just done there. So he cautiously moved, crawling slowly to another nearby snowbank. Jack put his whole face into the clean snow, groaning and letting out another sob as pain shot through his body. He gagged, and another sob escaped his throat as he felt his now empty stomach constrict on itself, trying to force out its non-existent contents. Whimpers and gasps came out with each convulsion.

Finally, the boy gained enough control over himself to breathe, and uncurled himself from the ball he was in. Jack rolled onto his back, whimpering again, and raked his hands into the snow above his head, pulling it over his forehead and eyes. He realized he was crying, and quite vocally. His whole body was shaking and he was covered in sweat.

That was extremely unpleasant.

He didn't notice his friend standing over him until he felt the yeti's paw gently rubbing his shoulder. Jack whined softly - too many people had seen him in vulnerable states as of late and it was wearing on his nerves - but it turned into a cry as Phil tried to pick him up. "No!" His voice cracked. "Please, I can't.." he was cut off by his body betraying him once more and within seconds he was curled up on his side, coughing and gagging and drooling, and hating himself more than ever.

It took a few minutes for him to finally calm down, and by that time he was vaguely aware that North and Bunny had joined him and Phil outside. He wanted to feel humiliated, but he was far too miserable. He felt one of the furry creatures - whether it was Phil or Bunny, he didn't know - pick him up, but he didn't dare open his eyes to see. His head was pounding.

He thought for a minute he heard North whisper "Jack's room" before he felt himself being sucked through the portal.

They weren't out of it for two seconds before he was over the nearest trash can, retching again.

* * *

"You'd think the kid had never gotten sick before." Jack had finally passed out, his head sliding from the side of the trash can and thumping hard on the floor before any of them could catch him. Bunny pulled him up and Phil, looking incredibly worried, cleaned around his mouth before they finally got him over to the bed. They were in what North had deemed "Jack's room" - the same room where Jack had stayed while he got over his fever.

Phil tried to say something, but Bunny shook his head. Despite knowing most languages of the world, yetish was one of the few he just could not grasp. He looked up at North for translation.

"He says Jack did not eat before."

Bunny blinked. "He didn't _eat_? Ever?"

Phil said something else. "He says Jack was frozen. Could not eat - had no need. Is alive now, and needs food. Was not before."

"Wait...he was frozen before?"

"Da."

Bunny pondered that for a moment. Jack had drowned in an icy lake. It's why Manny gave him powers over ice and cold - if he hadn't, Jack wouldn't have survived the winter, and his body would have decayed in the water long before Burgess warmed in the spring.

Of course. If Jack was previously frozen, and not anymore - alive was the word that kept coming to mind - that would explain why he didn't bleed in his memories but was covered in the stuff every time Bunny tracked him down. He was thawing out, and that meant his body needed normal human behavior like sleeping and eating. It also meant that he would bleed because his blood wasn't frozen in him.

Bunny sighed and nudged the sleeping boy's neck with his nose. The action earned a sweet whimper and Bunny couldn't help but smile. 18 wasn't too young by human standards, but Jack managed to appear every bit a teenager, the 300 year old man he really was, and the child so much like the ones he had recently sworn to protect all at once. That got him thinking. If Jack was thawing, did that mean he would age? He cast a glance at North. It was impossible for him to imagine Jack like that. He liked the boy the way he was.

He nudged Jack's neck one more time before standing up again. "North, if he's thawin', he needs to start takin' care of himself. Jack wasn't exactly well off as far as food goes when he was alive, considerin' the times he lived in. It'd be easy for him to go into shock if his hunger and health ain't managed properly."

The large old man nodded. "Yes, Bunny. I trust you can help with zat, no?"

"Yeah." When North had left again to work on his Christmas preparations, Bunny stroked Jack's hair a bit. Poor kid. He took to his chair next to Jack's bed and sat, waiting for the boy to wake up again.


	18. A Place To Call Home

Jack had spent a lot of time sleeping since becoming a Guardian.

North watched him now, as he occasionally whimpered in his sleep. Poor kid. They should probably call Sandy to come give him a good dream; North knew in his belly that he was having another nightmare about his sister.

After hearing what Phil had to say, North was no longer very surprised about Jack's condition. Seeing as he had not eaten in three centuries, it was only common sense to assume that he'd never gotten sick before, or at least didn't remember what it felt like until now. It was probably enough physical stress to put the boy back under for at least a day, if not longer. More than that, his stomach was empty again, and the chances that he'd get hungrier as time went on were high.

He could only hope Bunny knew how to handle this, to keep this vomiting fiasco from happening again. North desperately wished he could be the one taking care of Jack, but he knew the process would take a lot of time and attention, and he couldn't really spare more than a few days from work. There was still Christmas to worry about, after all. The number of lights on the globe was not anywhere near the number it had been just seventeen days ago. He was not Bunny; he could not do all his preparations in a matter of a week. Part of him felt very guilty - very_ very_ guilty - about focusing more on the children of the world than the boy he was already beginning to think of as his own son, but he knew (or at least hoped) that Jack understood.

North still vowed that he was going to make Jack as happy as he possibly could, whenever he could. And he'd start by taking a few days off work to make Jack a little present.

* * *

He knew just what to do. With Bunny's help (and constant Tooth-like hovering, mind you), Jack's sleeping form was moved to another spare room.

"Jack's room" was actually rather plain, and with the recent events happening with the winter spirit it somewhat resembled a hospital room. That was going to have to change. North wanted Jack to know that they were trying, and what better way to do that than to give him a home in Santoff Clausen? But that really wasn't enough, after all the boy had been through. Simply telling him that he could stay wouldn't be enough - he knew that Jack would thank him but not take him up on the offer.

All that was in the room, really, was a desk, a bed, a trash can, and a tall wardrobe. Making quick work of it, he hauled the furniture to the center of the room. "Dingle!" his voice boomed throughout the workshop. Dingle and his three buddies, four of the less idiotic (although they didn't quite act it) elves in his workshop, came skittering into the room. "Get tape and tarp, and bring them in here. Do not play!" he added at the end, knowing that if not given the instruction he would come back to four elves with tarp taped around them like a bunch of burritos. If he came back to it anyway, he might just feed them to the yetis. As the little dimwits ran to follow their orders, North hurried himself to find some cans of paint.

* * *

Painting the room was a frustrating process, but thankfully didn't extend more than two days. North had put a large sheet of tarp over the furniture and across the floor, and prepped the rest of the room for painting with the tape.

When he was finished painting, the room was nothing short of magnificent. The ceiling was the truest shade of midnight blue, the walls a gradient from the ceiling color to a lighter blue, to the faintest hint of metallic silver at the bottom. White snowflakes adorned the walls and stars could be seen on the ceiling. The room simply screamed Jack Frost.

North had to get back to work, but he had enough time left to finish up Jack's room. He moved the furniture pieces back into their proper places against the walls and stood in the doorway to admire his work. The paint really had done a number to the atmosphere of the room. While the furniture was still basic and wooden, the elegant design on the walls turned the infirmary-like room into something warmer and more homey.

Jack would have no choice but to accept this gift.

He retrieved Jack's old clothes. The boy wouldn't notice for a while, but North had fixed up the ratty clothing. The pants still looked as frayed as they had ever, but were more sturdy as opposed to on the verge of falling apart. The shirt, as well. The hoodie hadn't needed as much attention, but received the same care. These clothes would last for Jack for a very long time. He hung them up in the wardrobe.

Finally, he took the boy's staff from Phil - the concerned yeti had been holding it hostage so Jack couldn't fly away again. But as he went to put it in the wardrobe with the rest of Jack's attire, something caught his eye. It was a little piece of wood, tied tightly but carefully into the curve of the crook. It was the doll that North had given him just before his ceremony.

Touched tears welled up in North's eyes. Smiling to himself, he propped Jack's staff up into the corner of the wardrobe and shut the doors.

* * *

North had already gone back to working, so Bunny and Phil moved Jack back into his room while he was asleep. They wanted him to wake up to it; it was a surprise gift. And surprised he was. When Jack woke up, he couldn't find any words to express what he felt about the room. But when North came by to check on him when he had a minute away, Jack, although highly unaccustomed and uncomfortable with having such a wonderful gesture made towards him, sat himself up and gave the old man a hug.


	19. Adaption

"Jack, ya have to eat."

Jack shook his head. "I'm not hungry." Bunny wasn't convinced in the slightest when Jack's stomach growled.

He sighed. Jack had been easier to feed during the two days he was recovering. Every time he'd woken up, he'd been so out of it that he didn't even care that Bunny was hand-feeding him crackers. Now, though, the kid was refusing food. "Look, I understand you don' wanna puke again, but you still need to eat." Jack gave him a look that would have been a glare, but it was too pitiful. "I'm not gonna let you get sick." Bunny got up out of his chair and made his way over to the desk.

"You're not going to leave, are you?" Jack's tone made it clear he didn't want Bunny hovering over him like this. He must be uncomfortable with all the attention.

"After all that's happened? No, I'm not gonna let'cha outta my sight." Bunny didn't see Jack cringe at his words.

* * *

Bunny had taken the liberty of re-bandaging Jack's arms. "To protect the stitches", he remembered vaguely. Jack was sure it was more than that. Despite his "thaw", Jack was still relatively cool to the touch and his body created frost when it needed to - his stitched wounds had been frosted over as (super)natural protection while the cuts healed. Once his cuts stopped bleeding, the frost would stay put through just about anything.

Jack had been staring at his bandages while thinking about this, and glanced up at Bunny. The rabbit looked away, but Jack hadn't missed the look on his face. One of fear, and worry, and discomfort.

Bunny didn't trust him to see his cuts. He thought looking at them would trigger him to do it again.

Jack looked back to his lap and scowled with that thought in mind, trying to push away the fact that Bunny was probably right.

* * *

Bunny watched Jack scowl and sighed internally. He knew the kid must be tired of the changes his body was going through. It couldn't be easy getting out of old habits and being forced into new ones.

But the Pooka was determined to help him get used to it. No one, especially not Jack, should have to figure this out alone.

* * *

It took a lot of convincing over the next few hours to get the winter spirit to give in and eat the crackers that Bunny kept offering. Even though his main reason for not eating was guilt, another part of him was just terrified that he would get sick again. He _never_ wanted to feel like that for the rest of his life. But the hollow feeling in his stomach was getting dangerously close to how he felt out in the snow before passing out.

Bunny insisted that the salted crackers and ginger ale would keep his stomach settled, so he ate slowly and cautiously.

Admittedly, after a couple of days of this and an occasional mug of chicken broth, he felt a lot better, and his apparent personal eating coach moved him up to more daring, albeit still gentle, foods. And over the next week, he was eating normally - or as normally as Bunny predicted he had eaten when he was alive, which apparently wasn't much to him, but seemed slightly excessive to Jack.

Fortunately, under Bunny's careful supervision, all of that food stayed put and he could already feel his body getting back to a regular schedule.

Unfortunately, now that his fear of getting sick had subsided, all that left for Jack to feel about this whole situation was that guilt.

Guilt that threatened to eat him alive.

* * *

"Jack's gone again!"

North looked up from his ice sculpture and cookie plate at the disgruntled rabbit with a horrified expression. "Vat?!"


	20. Suicide

Everything was just too much.

He couldn't protect anyone in the state he was in now. How was he supposed to live up to his oath and be a Guardian?

He was already a burden to North, who had felt the need to give him a place to stay because he was just so pathetic.

He had worried Tooth and Sandy for something so ridiculously stupid.

He'd taken away all of Bunny's free time because he needed to be _babysat_.

He was useless. _Worse than useless_.

He couldn't take it anymore.

He willed the wind to take him high up into the sky. He didn't know if people would be able to see him if he died, but he didn't want to risk it and couldn't do this in a populated area. He was in Antarctica now, where no one would think to find him. He couldn't cause snowball fights and fun times here, so why would they?

Except they probably would, after a while. But that was okay. They'd find him, they'd mourn, but they'd be better off. And, it would be a long time and he might be buried in snow by then. The Man in the Moon wouldn't find him for a long time, either, with his presence almost always up at the North Pole.

And there he was, high enough in the sky that Jack was finding it difficult to breathe in the thin air. Nothing but the wind was holding him up; a fragile bond that could be broken with just a thought or a slip of his hand on his staff.

But what would he do to the Guardians?

He knew somewhere in the back of his mind, or at least hoped, that they cared about him, and he about them. He didn't want to make them sad by doing this.

Tears started to run down his face. He didn't want to.

But he needed to. He was so beyond being useless and he was worth nothing. Do they really care? Why would they?

But what about Jamie?

He'd just stop believing, right? But what if he stopped believing in all the Guardians? Jamie was such a special believer, losing him now would be a hard blow.

If he didn't? What would the others tell him? Would they tell him anything? How would he react to hearing his new friend was _dead_?

He shook his head. No. He didn't want to hurt him, too. He couldn't. Who could do that to a child? Something like that could mess him up for life.

He wanted so badly to just let go, to fall, and to die.

But he was so scared to leave the people he cared for.

The wind carried him back down to the ground and he curled up in a ball, sobbing.

He didn't know what to do.

The anxiety swelled in his stomach. What could he do?

He hated himself.

The inability to kill himself taunted him, sending terrible shots of need up his spine and through the pit of his stomach, and he pulled out the razor he'd dug out in Chile from his pocket. Bunny had taken his other one.

He knew the Guardians didn't trust him anymore. They were probably out now looking for him, knowing he'd do this.

They didn't trust him not to.

Bunny'd told him (or rather, implied) that he didn't trust him anymore.

His stomach twisted with that thought and he almost screamed. Maybe he did scream. He didn't know.

He cried, and screamed, and made desperate but shallow cuts at his arms until he was exhausted, and let sleep take him.

He deserved the pain. He deserved the nightmares.

He was a terrible person. He deserved it all.

He didn't deserve to be trusted.

He didn't deserve kindness.

He didn't deserve anyone.

He deserved to be alone.


	21. Can't Do This Anymore

Jack awoke in the same position as he'd fallen asleep. Judging by the fact that the snow was still coming down and there was still hardly any on him, he realized he must have not been out for that long.

He looked around, as if he could somehow judge his location by the landscape. '_Why do I keep coming back here?'_ He was by the eternally frozen sand sculpture. Again. He shook his head and walked over to where Pitch had thrown him during their fight. It looked somehow comforting down there, so he jumped. The wind took him down gently to the bottom, rustling his hair, whispering to him in worry. He shrugged in response to it and curled up in the corner against the rocks.

Jack's thaw, he began to realize as he sat in the arctic snow, had meant another change in his body - he could actually feel cold. It wasn't unpleasant, seeing as he was a winter spirit and naturally would prefer colder climates regardless of body temperature, but it was different. Before, he hadn't been able to feel the cold of his snow. It was never colder than he was - anything ranging 10 degrees higher or 30 lower than Jack's natural body temperature didn't really register to his brain. He supposed that was similar to what most people felt temperature-wise, but his was always abnormally cold. He'd figured that out early on. It's how he knew that his snow would stick - if he couldn't feel the outside air, it was about right.

Unfortunately, he wasn't able to tell until now what _too_ cold was. It was this that caused a lot of death and pain in the winter time; hypothermia, frostbite - he winced at the name Bunny had given him all those years ago - anything related to simply being out in air that was too cold to be healthy.

Jack sighed. he didn't want that thought in his head. Logic and reasoning told him that it wasn't really his fault; that he couldn't help it because he couldn't feel it, that no one had been around to teach him how to control his powers and keep the temperature from getting _too_ cold, and that he honestly tried his best to help people when they'd get caught but would sometimes accidentally make it worse. But the guilt spoke louder.

_You killed those people, Jack! You're a murderer!_

Faith's words echoed in his mind.

Wait. No. Faith never said that. That was just a nightmare.

He shook his head, trying to put those thoughts out. He didn't want to start cutting again.

He didn't want to cut anymore.

...

All other thoughts were forgotten at the realization.

_I don't want to cut anymore_.

Jack buried his face in his hands and curled in tighter around himself. He started to cry, heaving sobs and fat tears, and it was in that state of miserable confusion that Bunny found him.

* * *

Bunny found himself at the cliff in Antarctica by that giant, terrifying sculpture when he came out of his tunnel. Making his best effort not to look at it, he started to sniff around for Jack's scent.

He didn't have to go very far, though. He didn't even need the scent. He could hear Jack at the bottom of the nearby ravine.

Using his tunnels to get down to level with the boy, he got a good look at him and sighed.

"Ah, Snowflake."

Jack hiccuped and buried his face deeper into his hands, shaking a little. He took it as an acknowledgement but not rejection of his presence. Bunny didn't waste any time in scooping the white haired boy up into his arms and opening a tunnel directed towards the Warren. He wanted to hug the boy and let him cry, and intended to, but there was no way he was going to do that in the cold arctic air.

Jack's hands never left his face the whole way through the tunnel. Bunny took it slow; it was obvious by the boy's stiffness now that he was embarrassed and unsure whether he was okay with this or not, and he didn't want to make the kid jump out of his arms and leave.

Finally, they made it to the Warren, right in a nice isolated patch of green surrounded by rocks, not unlike where they had been before in Antarctica. Bunny slowly put Jack on the ground, and instantly the frost spirit was curled in on himself again, scooting back into the corner. His sobbing didn't stop; it came in gasps that Jack was making an effort to hide, although not well. The poor kid. After all he'd seen of Jack, he'd never seen him outright cry, especially not like this.

Bunny sat down next to Jack, close enough that Jack felt his presence and leaned into the wall away from him. The Pooka nudged Jack with his nose gently and the boy whimpered between sobs. "Why'd you run?" Jack only shook his head. His breathing was erratic - if Jack didn't calm down, he'd start hyperventilating. Nudging and nuzzling against Jack gently, trying to comfort him, Bunny stayed silent.

After a while, when his breathing settled, he tried to speak. "Bunny..." came the broken voice.

"Yeh? I'm here," Bunny mumbled softly, his muzzle still pressed in Jack's hair.

"I..." The hoarse voice broke apart into sobbing, and Jack cried, "I don't want to do this anymore."

Bunny wrapped his arms gently around Jack's shoulders. "Don't wanna do what?" he almost whispered, rubbing his paws on Jack's back soothingly.

To his surprise, Jack practically lunged into him, his arms wrapping around the large rabbit's waist while his fists twisted into the fur, and Jack's soaking wet face was pressed into his chest as he sobbed openly. "I'm...I'm sorry.." Jack gasped, shaking violently in Bunny's embrace. Bunny was shocked as the boy continued in sobs. "I'm so, so sorry! I...I..." he hiccuped again.

Bunny pulled him closer, snuggling the crying child. "Shhhh, Snowflake. You have nothin' to apologize fer. Shhhh..." he stroked at Jack's back and hair, nuzzling him, holding him in his lap, trying to quiet him, but Jack wouldn't stop.

"I don't...wanna...feel like...this..." Jack was already at the point of having to breathe through his mouth as he tried to talk. He gripped Bunny's fur harder as he made the effort to talk through his shaky sobbing. "I-I feel...like...like a...burden and...I..." Gasping. Hiccuping. "People die...my snow...ice...I...I hurt people...and...and...useless..."

"Stop it right now, Jack." Bunny said a bit sharply, earning a squeak from Jack. "You are NOT useless, and you never have been. An' I shoulda been the one to show you that a long time ago. We should've - I should've - come to help ya when you were first born, shoulda paid more attention, should've..." He trailed off, running a paw against Jack's forehead to brush back his hair. "You shouldn't 've had to suffer like that, all alone. You shouldn't 've had to suffer at all. If we'd - if I'd been there, instead of..." Jack's crying hadn't stopped, but his sobs were subsiding and it looked like he could breathe again. "All the things I've said to ya, none of them are true. None of them have ever been true and you've proved that, but you shouldn't 've had to. I should have never made those assumptions and I never even apologized for anything, for everything, I've done to you, Jack. I'm so sorry."

* * *

Jack was at a loss for words, and it wasn't because he was crying embarrassingly hard. He buried his head into Bunnymund's chest again and whimpered, his sobs picking up again. As soon as he started wishing Bunny would nuzzle against him again, he did, and it wasn't long before Jack finally managed to stop crying completely.

His hands relaxed their hold on Bunny's fur and he felt the Pooka relax with the release. "I-I'm sorry..." he mumbled, pulling his hands back, realizing that his hold must have been uncomfortable for Bunny.

But he was pulled back into the warm body and his arms wound their way around him once more. Strong paws rubbed up and down his back and warm, steady breaths blew through his hair, making him sigh in contentment at the comfort his friend offered.

"You've done nothin' wrong."


	22. Family

Jack seemed perfectly happy to stay in Bunny's lap - not that Bunny minded, of course. Jack needed him, and Bunny was more than happy to have him curled up in his lap instead of hiding out in a continent completely covered in snow, all alone. Besides, it was kinda nice having the kid cuddled up close like that. "Yer not alone anymore, Jack," he said quietly, resting his cheek on the top of Jack's head. "In fact, you've done somethin' that a thousand years couldn't do."

"What's that?" The boy sounded hoarse now. Bunny wasn't surprised.

"If you'll come back with me to the Pole, I'll show ya."

* * *

Jack had to think about it for a minute. He wouldn't readily admit it, as the spirit of winter, but he loved being in Bunny's Warren (and more than that, cradled in Bunny's arms the way he was) and didn't really want to leave. Bunny must have seen him looking around uncertainly. "You're always welcome here, Jack. Just say the word and I'll bring you back."

Jack finally nodded, and stood up out of Bunny's lap. Bunny opened up a tunnel and let Jack jump in first. This time, Jack got to enjoy the trip on his own feet, laughing the whole way. It felt good to laugh, really good, despite his slightly sore throat. He felt lighter, and happier. He heard Bunny, chuckling a little behind him, and laughed harder.

They popped out of Bunny's tunnel from a pillar inside North's globe room, leaving Jack slightly disoriented at the fact. He was about to ask Bunny about it before he was tackled by a buzzing feathery body. "Jack! Oh, Jack, when Bunny told us you'd gone missing from your room again I was so worried! I'm so glad you're okay! You _are_ okay, right? No broken bones? No bruises? Where'd you go without telling anyone? Did Pitch come back and take you?" He was barely able to shake his head after the rapid-fire questions. "No? What if something had happened and we wouldn't have been able to find you?" She pushed him back to inspect his face, as if there would be evidence of having been hurt there.

The actions reminded him of the mother he remembered, the mother from his human life, and something welled up inside him. It felt nice. Cautiously, he said, "I'm fine, _mom_," with a wink and a grin. He knew she saw the real emotion behind the facial expression he gave and understood the implications of that sentence, because her mouth curved into a small, touched smile and tears started to show in her eyes. She hugged him again, her wings fluttering wildly.

"Jack," Bunny said to his right, standing beside Sandy and North. "A thousand years of bein' Guardians together, and the four of us have barely been friends."

"Da. We were too busy bringing joy to children to have time for children. But also no time for each other."

"Since you were chosen, we've been seein' a _whole bloody lot_ of each other." Bunny's tone implied annoyance as he glared to the side at North and Sandy, but the playful smirk on his face told Jack differently.

Sandy bounded over next to him to join Tooth in the hug, conjuring a heart made of sand over his head before tackling the pair. Jack chuckled at the enthusiastic little man.

"We've become a family in the short time that we've known ya, Snowflake. And you've put yourself smack in the center of it."

"My boy, we are all sorry for not being there before."

"Jack." Tooth didn't let up on her hug one bit. "Let us be your family."

North joined Tooth and Sandy in the now group hug and Jack was feeling a little squished. Bunny completed the circle around him and he almost couldn't breathe. But he didn't care. He loved it. He actually loved it.

He felt a small buzzing body snuggle into the hug and perch on his shoulder. Baby Tooth chirped her own little bit to him and he laughed again.

"A family..." he mused. "A real family." And finally, his arms found two of the Guardians - at this point he wasn't sure who he grabbed - and pulled them closer in.


	23. A Word From Jack Frost

"It still took decades for me to recover, after the Guardians declared themselves my family. During that time, the pressure and fear would sometimes become too much, and I would run away again. But I didn't cut myself again because I didn't want to disappoint the others. It was hard to stop, it really was, but keeping them in mind really helped me.

Tooth put Baby Tooth in charge for a while so she could watch my memories from when I was human with me. Seeing my life before was both wonderful and overwhelming, and I'm glad that she stayed with me throughout the whole ordeal. I really needed the support.

Sandy took it upon himself to track me down every night. That wasn't easy to do, either - I had a place to stay at both North's and Bunny's, and sometimes Jamie would let me spend the night, but sometimes I still liked to sleep outside in the trees by the lake. I eventually learned that his trails of dream sand couldn't track immortals the way it could mortals, and that's why he'd never given me dreams before. But now, he always makes sure to find me.

Bunny and North (and Phil, of course) helped me struggle through the last of my thaw. I'm not sure where I'd have ended up without their help.

North over time became an adopted father to me, and Bunny became like a big brother. Tooth is like my mother, and Sandy...Sandy is like a goofball uncle. I love them all.

Even Jamie was a big part in my recovery. He quickly became my best friend. As he grew up, got married, and had kids of his own, he still believed in me. His family always welcomed me as one of them, even though I'm still an awkward teenager. That's...not my point though.

None of that is, actually. This is about something else.

Pain comes in all forms. Sometimes it comes from three hundred years of loneliness, and decades of self-loathing and an overbearing feeling of worthlessness. Sometimes it comes from the loss of a dearly loved one. Sometimes it comes from giving your heart to someone, only to have it returned in pieces. Sometimes it comes from simply existing.

Pain affects people of all ages; the 300 year old spirit of fun who had no control over his own rampant emotions, the 80 year old man crying at his wife's funeral, the 40 year old woman struggling with depression, the 14 year old boy thrust into a world that is confusing and scary and new and met with only impatience from everyone meant to help him grow.

Pain is handled by different people in different ways. Some people cry and cry. Some people write. Some people paint. Some people simply lay in their beds until the pain subsides. And some people hurt themselves.

Some people will say that the act of hurting yourself is nothing but a fad; that self harm is something that young teenagers do in their moody years because they're crying for attention they don't even need. Other young people, especially, will give self-harmers a hard time. But it's not true. If you are young, and you hurt yourself in any way, know that you are not alone. Look at me - I'm eternally 18 years old (and technically over 300!), and I'm only just now recovering. Sometimes I'm still triggered by things, and it's extremely hard not to fall back into that pit.

It's perfectly acceptable to have triggers. There is nothing wrong with you because someone talking about self harm or someone talking about what causes you to self harm in the first place makes you want to revert back to that state. There is nothing wrong with you if you are triggered by anything. There is nothing funny about it and you are not overreacting.

There are people out there, I know, who are older (physically) than I am. 20. 22. 26. 34. Age. Doesn't. Matter. It is not just a fad that you will grow out of. And I know you don't do it for attention. You do it because you're confused. You feel like you have no control over your life.

It doesn't matter where your pain comes from. No one's pain is ever invalid. Just because someone has it worse than you does not mean that you have no right to be sad. Just because someone else can handle what you're going through without feeling the way you do does not mean you are weak for what you do. It doesn't matter how old you are. It doesn't matter what gender identity you are or what sex you are. It doesn't matter what religion or race or financial class you are. Your pain is no less valid than that of anyone else. Pain is pain. It doesn't even matter whether or not you have a mental illness - your pain is valid. Your pain is always valid.

To all of you, young and old, who hurt yourselves, remember something. You are not alone. There are others out there who struggle every day, just like you. There are people out there who genuinely care - whether it's your best friend, your own parents, your own children, or someone you've never even met before - there are people out there who want to help you through these hard times. You don't even have to look very hard to find them.

Because everyone deserves someone who will be willing to help. Everyone deserves someone to call a friend, a confidant, a member of their chosen family. Everyone deserves someone to talk to, just to talk to, to get advice from, to laugh with, to cry to.

And most importantly, remember this: it gets better. Sure, that saying is overused. Sure, it's cliche. But it's true. It gets better. You have to give it a chance, and it might get a little worse beforehand, but things will get better.

We're here for you. To protect you. To love you. To care for you.

You're not alone."


End file.
